Ties That Bind
by Princess180
Summary: Rating may change. AU Spike and Buffy have been best friends since they were kids and their moms shared a hospital room. Now it's ten years later and Spike's a famous rock star who's in love with his childhood friend, and Buffy's a twenty-year-old college
1. Prologue: Depressing And Stuff

**Prologue: This is All Depressing And Stuff **

**A/N: Here's the AU I've been talking about for so long... hope you like it! I know this will be slowing down everything else I've got on the go, but this idea seemed so neat that I wanted to get it out there. Reviews are lovely things. **

_Perfect moments are rare, and when they do come, they can be a disappointment, because we've been looking forward to a moment of absolute peace and we know that, eventually, it has to end. Which is why I have never really liked pure peace as a rule, it's all very nice to talk about, but in reality it's kind of a letdown. _

_And that's all the insight you're getting out of me. _

_I don't like talking about the past, it hurts, kind of. Not so much anymore but, well, I try not to think about it. I'm not going to tell you a fairytale, there are no knights on white horses, though there is a really funny story about Xander, Anya and a white horse on a beach. But that wasn't really the point I was trying to make, what I wanted to say was that this is a story about real life, and there are no real happily ever afters in real life, we get damn close, but well, let's just say nothings ever as nice as it sounded when we were six. True love sounds nice, but really it isn't with the flowers and the roses all the time, sometimes it's with the broken dishwasher and the colicky baby that won't shut up._

_But that's not my point. I want to tell you a story, a story about a little boy, and a little girl, who never had things as easy as it seemed. _

"I'm not really looking forward to it," Joyce Summers laughed, looking over at the balding thirty-something woman with dark hair lying across the hospital room from her.

"I don't know how I feel. If it weren't for the boys and Rupert I wouldn't mind dying," Anne Giles said, "I'll miss them so much... and Angel needs me. It's better now, with the meds, but he still has days when he's violent." Anne's eldest son, Liam "Angel" Giles had been diagnosed with schizophrenia three weeks before Anne's breast cancer tests had come up positive- it had been a year of hell for she and her husband, Rupert Giles.

"I worry about Buffy most of all, she takes things so deeply. Dawn will get over it, but I doubt if Buffy will ever be quite the same when I'm gone," Joyce's daughters were six and eleven.

"You should tell them, Joyce, they need to know," Anne said, "Will and Angel know, and I think they'll be better for it the long run, I get to say goodbye."

"I have more time, I'll tell them soon, when they're ready."

"Tell who what, Mom?" A petite girl with dirty-blonde hair said, coming into the sunny hospital room, dragging a younger brunette by the hand. "Come on, Dawnie," she whined at her younger sister.

"Morning, sweethearts," Joyce said, pushing the button to get her bed into the upright position. "Tell me about yesterday at school, and where's your father?"

"Daddy said he had to go to work and Auntie Emily had a headache, so she couldn't come," Buffy explained, "she gets a lot of headaches, doesn't she?" Joyce and Anne shot each other looks, Emily was Joyce's ex-husband's much younger wife, and you could tell she was repulsed by her husband. Frankly, they thought he deserved it.

"I drew a picture for you, Mummy," Dawn said, pulling the scribbles in yellow and green marker out from her Barbie backpack, "we drew it in Sunday school. It's heaven."

Joyce started crying.

_Maybe I'm not the best person in the world to tell a love story. I don't believe in true love or any of that nonsense. Fate or God or what have you. I believe in pure random bloody chance- and I thank it for what it's given me. I believe that there aren't any perfect fits out there in the world- no matter who you are there are flaws in your relationship, you can't be perfectly compatible with someone. _

_But, then again, I could be wrong. _

_I was strong for a long time, for a lot of people. My best friend, my father, my brother, my deranged ex-girlfriend, my closest friends. I'm still strong, but it's nice to hurt once in a while, even if I have hurt enough for this lifetime and the next one as well. _

_I don't want to waste your time or mine complaining about how sodding horrible my life has been, so I won't. Instead, I'll tell you a story, about a room full of death, and a little girl full of life._

"Will, pet, it's going to be alright," Anne said, knowing it was futile to try to stop her youngest son's waterworks once they had started. "It's going to be alright, baby."

"No, it's not, Mum. Everything's gone to hell," the eleven year old with curly brown hair and his mother's striking blue eyes sobbed.

"Language, William!" His mother reprimanded. "And, yes, we're all going through a bad patch right now, but nothing lasts forever. Have I taught you nothing at all?"

"Please don't die, Mum," Will begged.

"I would die eventually, it's best to get it out of the way now, isn't it? Like doing the dishes," her son laughed for a moment and then looked at her, horrified.

"Mum!"

"It's true, isn't it? Yes, I'll miss you all terribly, but it will most certainly be a great adventure to die. Now, who said that?"

"Peter Pan," William replied instantaneously, his parents were both librarians and he and his brother had been taught from birth how to cross-index and read anything they came upon.

"Smart boy, you are. You'll get places with that brain," she smiled at him, glad to have distracted him from his melodramatics. She thought they'd been past that. She kissed his forehead where he lay next to her on the hospital bed, "your mother loves you, Will, and there are a lot of people in this world who never even had that."

"Don't tell me how lucky I am to have a dying mother who loves me and nutcase brother on fancy pink pills! I'm not lucky, Mum, I'm not," William said, passionately.

"Really? I think you're a very lucky young man. But if you disagree I don't particularly care."

"You're no fun, Mum."

"I know that, sweetest one, I know that," she kissed his forehead again, "I do love you, and Angel, and

even Rupert."

"Mum- is it OK if maybe I sleep on your side of the bed at home tonight?" William asked, shyly.

"Why on earth would I mind, Will?"

"It's still your bed," he replied, "it's just, I've been having nightmares and it smells like you in there, and Dad's really not so bad for a cuddle when you're desperate." She laughed, again, her son tried to be so tough and such a trooper for his family, but when it came right down to it, he was a softy and needed a hug as badly as anyone else in this situation would. This thought lead to another, striking thought.

_Something clicked the moment I saw him. He was scared, just like me. And he needed a hug, I was good at those._

"I don't know, Buffy, I think it's really more important to help out my dad than my mom. She's happy, in a weird way," William told the blonde girl sitting next to him in the uncomfortable blue, cracked plastic seats.

"My dad doesn't love my mommy anymore. They're divorced, he has a new wife and I don't think he really cares about my mommy anymore. She needs me."

"You want to do something more fun?"

"Yeah, this is all... depressing and stuff."

"Wanna go up on the roof of the hospital? One of the interns showed me how yesterday."

"Yeah."

_She needed a crutch, a best friend, a safety net. I needed someone to hold onto while I fell. We needed ropes and lifejackets. We had each other._


	2. Make It

**Make It**

**A/N: The Shakespeare quote is from A Midsummer Night's Dream (annotation: IIIii 140-144). What? I'm reading it for school and it seemed to fit! This chapter isn't as good as the last and I know that, but I was experimenting a bit with what I wanted to do with the characters, so they may have come out a bit wishy-washy. Watch for actual plot action in the next chapter! **

**Disclaimer: I only stole the characters! And the song, and the quote, and I didn't make up the words. But the way they're put together (song and quote excepted) is totally mine! **

_I believe in events, not emotions. We can't get by on just how we feel, because how we feel is too human, we're all animals inside, right? So we've got to keep the kill-or-be-killed idea in our heads. I wasn't going to get killed, again. I wasn't going to love and lose. _

_I was going to like and get rid of._

Buffy Summers laughed as her two best friends guided her into the Bronze, the most popular club in Sunnydale, she had a blindfold over her eyes, and had no clue what they had dressed her in. Her boyfriend, Riley Finn was sulking along behind the three giggling girls.

Willow Rosenberg, who stood on Buffy's right, was a pretty redhead, with a perpetually cheery expression. She and Buffy had met in tenth grade and bonded instantly over gossip and a mutual crush on Xander Harris, Willow's best friend since before she could remember. Luckily, they had both gotten over him, Willow was now dating the lead guitarist in the sort-of-half-famous band _Dingoes Ate My Baby_, Oz. Buffy and Riley had been together for almost a year now.

Anya Jenkins stood on her left, blonde this week with curls, pretty brown eyes and a disturbingly honest take on the world. She and Xander had met in the twelfth grade and had been a couple for the past three years, they were getting married in a few months. Anya and Buffy had bonded over chocolate and flunking math exams, while Willow and Xander 'tisk-tisked' in the corners and tried to get them to study.

Xander, tall with dark hair and chocolate eyes was walking with Riley, in on the joke and grinning like an idiot. His goofy sense of humour had gotten their tight-knit group through high school and half of university at this point. Oz, with dark brown hair that may or may not have been his natural colour, stood next to him, a lot shorter, but equally attractive. He was fielding off some girls asking for autographs- his band had really made it big in California and were in talks for a record deal.

That, with the exception of Riley, who was a newer addition and not really very close to anyone except Buffy, was the core group that had been together for as long as any of them could really remember in one form or another. Willow and Xander had simply been _born_ best friends, Oz, who had met them sophomore year and integrated himself into the group without any questions asked, Buffy and William, though Buffy, his father and his brother were the only people even remotely allowed to call him his given name, he'd been going by Spike since fifteen. Spike and Buffy, however divergent their personalities were, were simply a pair. You didn't get one without the other. So even though it was questionable whether Spike and Xander would ever get through more than three sentences without being mean, the bleached-blond, rock singer, was part of the group.

Buffy, Oz, Willow and Riley all went to the University of Sunnydale, Xander was in construction and Anya owned a store that sold herbs and crystals and what she referred to as 'creepy new age junk'. Spike had no permanent home, but when his band, _Man Enough To Admit It_, had taken off in a big way when he was nineteen, two years ago, he'd started touring almost constantly. Probably in an effort to get over his high school girlfriend, Drusilla, who'd been more than a little bit insane and, in Buffy's opinion, one of the worst things that could have happened to her best friend.

As they entered the Bronze, Buffy heard the opening cords of a very familiar song, Spike had written it for her on her eighteenth birthday, a few weeks before he'd moved away from Sunnydale to work in LA. He hadn't been in town for more than two weeks at a time since then. And normally those two weeks were Christmas and the anniversary of their mothers' deaths, which had only been a day apart. And the anniversaries were in just a little more than a week, and last she'd spoken to him, Spike couldn't come home.

_Save some face, you know you've only got one_

_Change your ways while you're young_

_Boy, one day you'll be a man_

_Oh girl, he'll help you understand _

"Guys, if my only surprise is that they're playing my song, can I go home now?" Buffy asked, _Smile Like You Mean It (Buffy's Song_) had taken off as the band's first real hit, and Buffy rarely went a day without hearing it. Sure she felt bad that the song had been the catalyst to Spike and Dru's relationship, it was just nice to hear it.

"It's more who's playing the song, Buf," Xander said, coming up and putting his hand on her shoulders, "and you have to promise not to scream."

"Isn't he just sex on a stick?" Anya said, dreamily, "if no one else wants him, can I have him?"

"That's it? Isn't he kind of... short?" Riley asked no one in particular.

"Try not to say to his face," Oz threw in.

"Does he ever take that thing off?" Willow asked, referring to the black leather duster the lead singer of the band on stage was wearing, granted, it did make him live up to Anya's more-than-blunt observation, but even his best friends hadn't seen him without it.

"SPIKE!" Buffy shrieked, ripping off the blindfold, revealing her blue-eyed, now bleached-blonde best friend on the stage, howling the song into a microphone he was doing things that should have been illegal too.

"That wasn't a scream at all," Xander commented.

"All the other girls saying his name that loud are throwing their panties," Willow observed, "how do you think they get them off? I mean it's gotta be _really_ uncomfortable when you-" Oz quickly covered his girlfriend's mouth.

"I'll tell you later. Don't give her any ideas," he pointed at Anya.

_Smile like you mean it_

_Smile like you mean it _

_Looking back at sunsets on the Eastside_

_We lost track of the time_

_Dreams aren't what they used to be_

_Some things sat by so carelessly _

Buffy quickly made her way up to the foot of the stage, using mostly force, while the rest of the group stayed at the back. They knew better than to interrupt the two when they hadn't seen each other in more than a week, they both babbled- and Spike was not one to babble- in something that wasn't any recognizable language.

_Smile like you mean it_

_Smile like you mean it _

_And someone is calling my name_

_From the back of the restaurant_

_And someone is playing a game_

_In the house that I grew up in_

_And someone will drive her around_

_Down the same streets that I did_

_On the same streets that I did _

_Smile like you mean it_

_Smile like you mean it_

_Smile like you mean it_

_Smile like you mean it _

_Oh no, oh no no no_

_Oh no, oh no no no_

As soon as the song was over, Spike jumped off the stage, and pulled Buffy into his arms, spinning her quickly and putting a kiss on each cheek.

"Surprised?" He asked the shell-shocked blonde.

"I'm going to kill you!" she said, hugging him and proving to the contrary. "You told me you couldn't make it home, I quote 'I'm sorry, pet, I'm just too busy right now, I've got to go do British things.'" Several people gave her very strange looks, Buffy hoped to God it was just the very bad accent.

"Remind me never to take you to a foreign country if that's what you can do to the King's English," Spike said, than squeezing her to him again, "missed you."

"Missed you, too. And now you can meet Riley! And this time, don't scare him off, alright? It took me months to explain why you growled at Scott and we _still_ broke up. And I blame it all on you. And yeah, he was a bastard in the end. But still..." She trailed off, pushing him back to examine him. "I thought you were over the eyeliner?"

"My makeup artists are terrifying women, I only wear it onstage," he explained. "And I thought you knew how I felt about that top?" He was eying Buffy's black, slinky tube top with something remotely resembling how a toddler looks at a new toy; complete and total possessiveness. "Your just a kid for Christ's sake!" Spike added this more for himself than for her.

"Anya and Will dressed me." She explained, "and you're not my father."

"Just a concerned citizen, pet," he said, then looked down at her mid-calf red suede dress appraisingly, "at least you're better dressed than you were last time you came to one of these things." She had been a bit drunk at the time, and had looked, she admitted midway through the hangover in Spike's hotel room the next morning, like a whore.

"Are you done the set?" She asked, noting for the first time that several teenaged girls were looking at her with undisguised hatred. "We're just friends, you can still get your paws on him," she called out before turning back to Spike. "So?"

"Yeah, we're done, love."

"How long are you here for?" She knew this was the next question, if it was anything less than a week Buffy's plan was to beat him until he needed to be hospitalized for as long as she wanted him there.

"As long as you need me, granted you need me for twelve days or less," he answered, "and, before you ask, no wiggling room. I had to _bribe_ Ethan to even get this off- on the condition I did tonight and tomorrow night. Then I'm in New York for a week, and on a plane to record the new album with him holding us all upside down by our ankles and shaking until songs come out."

"No new songs?" Buffy asked. _Man Enough To Admit It_'s first album had had them riding high for a year, and then their second, _102 Synonyms for You_, had rocketed them up so that, as Spike had said at the time 'we can almost get into an elevator with a living Beatle without blushing and pissing our pants. And now, a year and a half later, their manager, Ethan Rayne (who gave Buffy the creeps), was very eager to see a third album, but Spike, who wrote most of the songs for the four-man band, was totally blocked.

"Not a one that I'd let see the light of day," Spike admitted. "The first album we'd had three years to work on- and then I had a lot to say after Dru left, but not so much anymore."

"You, nothing to say?" She laughed. "I doubt it. Rant about the president, or bash us all over the head with how cool you are. Try to be more upbeat."

"Have I taught you nothing?" He asked, despairing and throwing his hands up into the air. "I would be _lynched_ if I were even the slightest bit upbeat."

"You've taught me nothing, I'm like a steel trap. Where are you staying?"

"Right on that count. You'll never believe this, but you know the old Sunnydale Arms?" It was a posh hotel that Spike and Buffy had spent countless hours making fun of because it didn't let unmarried couples stay in it together, "Ethan decided it was the 'highest-class' of hotel here. Ethan holds Sunnydale in some kind of elevated disdain that I don't really understand, and I didn't have time."

"And Giles didn't want you to stay with him?" Buffy asked, referring to Spike's father, who lived in the house Spike had grown up in with Angel, Spike's older, schizophrenic brother.

"Someone would have died, you know that," Spike and his father had never gotten along well. "It wasn't just Da who didn't want me there."

"We'll talk later," Buffy said, registering the look on his face, a very familiar look of half-sadness, half-anger. It had been pretty much perpetual during high school, and then just after Drusilla had left him- well, after the drinking.

Buffy had to admit that watching Spike was part of the reason she'd never let herself get into a serious relationship with anyone she felt passionate about. He had loved Drusilla so much- despite the fact that she was insane and clearly not half so in love as he was. But he'd stuck with her until he'd found her with another guy in his bedroom, Giles had been out of town for the weekend and he'd been practically inconsolable.

Riley had been her longest-term guy, and she _liked_ him very much. He was stable, a farm-boy from Iowa and in the army, he was good for her. And her type, too, tall, dark and handsome. Sex with Riley was... nice. Kind of boring after the first week of lust-bunny-loving, but she'd get over it, maybe sex wasn't _supposed_ to be fun, after all, she'd only had one orgasm in her life and really she couldn't see what all the fuss was about.

Or at least that was what she was going to keep telling herself.

Spike on the other hand, thought it was entirely possible that love was the point of the universe- if it existed, that was. There was nothing so fantastic as the pure rush you got from being in love, and he didn't mean puppy love, Spike liked to think of himself as more than puppy-love, above it, if you will. He just loved the feeling you got when you saw the girl, who at the time, seemed the most precious, divine being in the world, it always made him want to quote Shakespeare at someone.

_Goddess, nymph, perfect, divine_

_To what, my love, shall I compare thine eyne?_

_Crystal is muddy, O how ripe in show_

_Thy lips, those kissing cherries, tempting grow._

He admitted that maybe his outlook on the world was ridiculously romantic for a man who swore he didn't believe in fate, or even real love. But sometimes he slipped, and for just a moment, he wasn't Spike Giles, rock star, lyricist and general all-around cool guy, he was William, timid, brilliant poet. And, yeah, he didn't mind it so much anymore. It was interesting to let down the tough-guy veneer and feel something- unless it was loss. That was the one things Spike was afraid of, losing someone he loved again.

He had tried, desperately, not to love anyone outside of his father, brother and Buffy for the longest time, but had failed. He had found out that he fell in love easily and out of it with difficulty, you should not always mistake a man who loves without reservations for a man who loves very little, most of these men do fall out of love as easily as they fall in, but some of them love forever, and possibly longer if given a chance.

Spike just hadn't had a chance yet.

"Well, yeah, Red, Clem's an idiot, but it was damned funny when the two birds walked in like that," Spike said, much later that night as he sat with his arm loosely hanging over Buffy's shoulder. The old core group, Spike, Willow, Xander and Oz were sitting together, Anya had spotted an old friend at the bar and left about an hour ago, telling Xander not to wait up, and Riley had left about fifteen minutes after meeting Spike in a huff.

"You mean they were sister's all along?" Xander spluttered, "did he write _Penthouse_?"

"Probably should- every guy's fantasy," Oz said, Willow smacked his arm, "except mine of course. You're all I want, ever, Willow." It was said with such a total lack of feeling that Buffy, Spike and Xander startled giggling into their assorted drinks.

"I've got to get home to Anya, she said something about tux fittings tomorrow and I've got to try to get out of it," Xander said. As far as anyone could tell, Xander's only goal when it came to his wedding was to get it over with and with as little participation as possible, "ride, anyone?"

"Yeah, take me home," Willow said, "I'm not feeling so drive-y."

"You mind taking me too?" Oz said, "Want to make sure she makes it up the stairs," it was a well-known fact that already klutzy Willow couldn't walk straight after a single alcoholic drink, and she'd had two martinis.

"On my way anyway, Buff?" Xander asked, nodding in the blonde's direction. He knew the answer would probably be no, he doubted she wouldn't stay at Spike's that night, but there was always the possibility of some weird sort of Riley commitment issues. Xander had never really liked Riley, or any of Buffy's boyfriends. He had always held a private suspicion that she and Spike would end up together whether they liked it or not, an idea which he knew most people who knew the pair well agreed with.

"No, I think I'll stay here a while longer, get caught up," she looked pointedly at Willow, "I'm going to head to the little girl's room though, alright Spike? Female bonding, Willow?"

"Be right back," Willow told Oz, leaning in and kissing his cheek.

As they walked to the bathroom of the Bronze, which was always smoky and hidden in a corner in the back, Buffy started talking, "I've got an issue. Riley freaked when he even saw Spike and got way more possessive than I can ever even remember him being before- and he had freaky Giles issues for a while," Buffy and Giles had always been close, seeing as her father and his constant stream of girlfriends/fiancées/wives never quite seemed to be able to parent she or Dawn.

"Think about this, Buffy, Spike's famous, hot and British- Riley's kind of well, not. Except with the handsome... in an overalls and pigs way," Willow said, applying colourless lipstick. Buffy looked critically in the mirror at her mascara, which had smudged from laughing so hard she cried.

"But didn't you think he was kind of _weird_ about Spike, I mean, he likes Xander and tolerates Oz, but it was like he wouldn't be in the same room with Spike in case he was catching," Buffy looked over at Willow, "and with my song- did you see that look on his face? He was _disgusted_. I don't get it- he knew about Spike, he knows how we met, he's got to know that Spike means something to me that he can't ever mean. And maybe we haven't said it yet, but there are times when I think he could be the long-haul guy, maybe."

"Remember what you said to me in high school when I made out with Xander and Oz caught us?"

"Remind me."

"You told me Xander had a part of me that Oz could never touch, and I just had to show Oz he came first now," Willow turned, "and since you haven't even had making-out-with-Spike _thoughts_- that you told me about- you just have to give Riley some extra smoochies and stuff until Spike leaves. Plus, tough time for you right now, Riley'll understand."

"No! That's the problem, Riley _won't_ understand, Riley doesn't like Spike and he's going to think I shouldn't like Spike. You know how he thinks- with Angel, remember?" Riley had essentially said that mental illness was the person's fault, and that Angel should 'cure himself' or die. It had been the only glitch in their relationship to date, and while Riley pretended to have come about on the issue, if he was near Angel, Buffy had noticed a tendency to recoil. "And I have never even thought about making out with Spike- it'd be like kissing Giles!"

"Yeah, and ew factor. For Giles, not Spike. Spike is hotness embodied. In a brotherly sort of way... like Xander, except I used to make out with Xander and... Yucky." Willow concluded, looking thoroughly puzzled, "and I'm not even really drunk yet."

"Yet?" Buffy asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I was considering it."

"Riding on the wild side, Will." Buffy teased, Willow's book-nerd tendencies were well-known and made fun of.

"Excuse me! I've done lot's of exciting stuff. Like dating a guy in a band- and a girl!" Willow claimed, somewhat excitedly, it was true, compared to Willow herself, her love life was very shocking. She'd dated, briefly, another woman, Tara, who'd moved away after graduation, throwing a separated (for about a year) Oz and Willow back together.

"Sure you have Will."

"And Buff?" Willow said as she put her stuff back into her purse, "don't pretend like you've never even thought about what it would be like with Spike."

"I've never!" Buffy said, "he's like my brother."

"If I danced like that with my brother I'd be breaking lots of laws. There's stuff there- if Riley doesn't work out..." Willow trailed off, "he likes you." Then she left, and Buffy was forcibly reminded of being fifteen and talking about her high school boyfriend- Parker, who had been a jerk of the first order.

But thinking about she and Spike was gross, or wrong or _something_ that wasn't of the good. Spike was like a brother to her, someone she loved in a platonic way and could never, never lose in any way. Buffy seriously doubted she'd retain any semblance of sanity if she didn't have Spike in her life, she knew she would never have made it this far without him. That didn't mean she hadn't thought about it, imagined loving someone who knew her so totally and completely, getting to claim him once and for all as hers... but those were just dreams, stupid ones at that. Love hurt, she knew that, and she did not want to get hurt again. Especially not by someone who meant as much to her as Spike as a lover inevitably would.

"Red and Oz, are they thinking long-term yet?" Spike asked, as they sat in their booth at the Bronze just after midnight. They had been gossiping for hours, though Buffy knew they'd eventually work their way around to themselves, but probably not until they went home. They had had sleepovers all through high school and elementary school, with Spike on the floor and Buffy on a bed, they'd never found anything strange about it, though everyone else (including their fathers) had. Since both of them had moved away from home, they normally shared a bed- there was nothing sexual about it, just the fact that in Buffy's dorm room (which she shared with Willow) and most of Spike's hotel rooms, there was only one bed, and neither of them had ever warmed up to sleeping on the floor.

"I think so, but I don't think they want to get married," she explained, "Oz is still a little weird about the Tara thing, and Willow just isn't sure about the whole idea. Besides, her parents are mad enough at her for just dating him."

"Thought good old Ira would like anything better than his little girl living in harlotry?" Spike said, sipping his third beer thoughtfully. "Is it really that big of a deal for them? I mean, I know he's really religious- but I thought Mrs. Rosenberg was on Willow's side now."

"They haven't talked much since the whole ordeal with Tara at graduation, Willow doesn't even go home Friday nights anymore. She normally comes here and spends the night with Oz- I think she misses them."

"I know I would, it would hurt to lose a parent like that..." Spike trailed off. "Speaking of, who's your dear old dad married to this week?"

"Secretary he's dating been around the house when I go to see Dawn. The usual, blonde, blue-eyes, tall, about my age, slutty as all hell. Anya adores her because she reads Cosmo and Riley's been ogling her like there's no tomorrow. Heard from Harmony, speaking of sluts?" Buffy grinned, she'd hated Spike's post-Drusilla girlfriend with a sort of holy passion, and when Spike had dumped her she'd actually done a little dance of joy. Alright, technically speaking, Harmony had dumped Spike because he was 'thinking about another girl', but that hadn't happened in Buffy's version of the world.

"Nah, but Dru's between boyfriends again, keeps on calling 'round Ethan's to see if I'm there. Rung Rupes last week, he nearly had a cow when she told him we were engaged," Spike chuckled humourlessly, and Buffy reached over to put a hand on his upper arm quickly.

"You're not going too get back with her, right?" Buffy knew that Spike intellectually knew that he and Drusilla could never be together again, but emotionally? It went deep, or had gone deep, for two years she'd been his salvation, his muse, his everything. You couldn't just make that go away with a snap of your fingers. No matter how very, very much you might want to. There were times when she thought she would do anything just to take away the years of pain and responsibility on Spike's shoulders- and her own.

"You worry too much, pet, doesn't suit someone as pretty as you," she smiled, Spike's compliments were common and, in her eyes at least, meant absolutely nothing asides from the fact that he didn't have an 'off' button. "Of course I'm not, and before you ask, I'm not seeing anyone new either."

"Seeing them and sleeping with them are different questions, any fun new conquests?" She teased Spike mercilessly about the sheer number of one night stands he'd had. She'd had one, with Oz after Willow had split up with him for Tara, she, Oz and Spike were the only people on the face of the earth who knew about it, and it was never, ever to be spoken of again.

"Groupie chit, Faith something-or-other's been shoving her bra in my nose every time I come off stage, but I'm probably not going too," he grinned at her.

"How long has it been, anyway?" she teased, "six months since you got any nookie at all?"

"I intensely dislike you."

"Feelings mutual, according to Clem and Evan it's been six months, two weeks and three days exactly."

"It's deeply disturbing that they counted," Spike said, trying to change the subject.

"Meh, Evan also told me what kind of condoms he likes to use and gave Riley sex tips," she grinned, "have I mentioned lately that I love your band?"

"No, and please don't, it's going to make it harder for me to kill them later. Speaking of Riley, why in hell's name are you dating him? He's made of cardboard and you don't love him," she looked at him evenly.

"Don't give me your 'stable, loving relationship' crap, Buffy."

"Kind of all I've got on hand," there had never been a point in lying to Spike, he would just get angry and figure out the truth. It was easier to pretend he couldn't read her mind.

"You want to get into this here?" Spike asked, reaching for his beer and taking a swig.

"Don't want to get into it at all."

"Too bad. My place or yours?"

"Yours," she pulled her leather coat off the back of her chair and stood up, holding her hand out to him.

"Don't think we're getting out of talking about you, buddy."

Spike's room was, as always when Ethan booked them, gorgeous, red with oak furniture and a four poster bed, where Buffy was lying, wearing an old shirt of Spike's and a pair of his sweatpants as she drank a glass of Diet Coke. Spike was sitting on an easy chair across from her, pen in hand, poised over a peace of paper, but looking over at her with much more interest than he was showing in the song he'd been trying to write.

"What I don't get is why Riley can't just deal with the fact that I'm in college and not just his girlfriend, I mean, he's a good guy, but there are days when he's just..." she trailed off and swung a finger around her head loosely, "really possessive. Which can be sexy when it's like, putting an arm around me when I'm with some guy who's coming on too strong, but when it's 'oh, it's nothing if you skip just one day of class, baby' it's a bit much."

"He calls you baby?" Spike asked, raising his scarred eyebrow (not from a bar fight, like everyone thought, but actually from the time he fell out of a tree trying to see if he could fly when he was four).

"You call me baby if I give you food and alcohol," Buffy pointed out. He nodded.

"He just seems more of the 'dear, bring me a beer while I sit on the couch and you labour away in the kitchen with our thirteen children because I am fundamentally against birth control and perpetually turned on' type."

"You hate him with more than your usual amount of anti-boyfriend hatred," Buffy commented.

"Government, sort of goes with the job to hate them all."

"How's Angel?" Buffy said, wanting to get off the topic of her relatively unsatisfactory love life. "I was over

there last week and your dad seemed really stressed out and he was sedated. Is he getting worse?"

"Resistance to the meds... we knew it was going to happen eventually, but we were really hoping it would take longer. He'll do alright once they get him on some new stuff, but I wish Rupert didn't want him at home, I could afford to put him somewhere he'd be happy, and cared for," Spike's entire life was about caring for the very select group of people he loved and his brother took up a lot of that time. Buffy knew that no matter what, blood would always matter to her best friend and his loyalty to his family was unquestionable and strong. Spike paid for all of Angel's medications and his psychiatrist, but felt guilty about not doing more for his older brother. Also, there was a stalemate that had been going on for years about whether or not to put Angel in a home, Anne, half-delusional from the pain medications a few days before she'd died, had made Giles promise to keep Angel at home with him. But it was becoming harder and harder for Giles, and Angel was veering out of control with more regularity.

Not that Spike had told her anything about it, normally, if she didn't already know, he would just tell her that Angel was 'fine' he was 'fine' and, in fact, everything was 'fine'. Which is why she had made it her life's work to know everything about him before he had to tell her, and if she had to use underhanded means (read: alcohol and low-cut shirts) to find out, she would. It was best to go into conversation with him with a well-formed battle plan, and knowing all his weakest spots, just in case they were needed. Which they rarely were, and she was glad, because Buffy had always hated to hurt him. They were both very strong people, but her strength was the core of her personality, while he was nothing but his emotions. Which meant, that he showed how he felt, and watching his features crumble had, for one reason or another, never been easy for the blonde. Certain reasons she had decided, consciously never to go into.

"And you?" she asked, "it's got to be hard for you, not being able to be there for them." There, she'd managed to come at it from the right angle.

"It's no harder than it's ever been, love."

"William Steven Giles! That is a lie," she accused, losing most of her patience the second he'd said the words in his ever-so-irritating offhand manner. He lazily saluted her. "_Spike_!"

"I don't want to talk about it, Buffy," he said, hoping that using her real name (which he rarely did) would hammer the point through.

"You've mistaken me for someone who cares what you want," she snapped. "I know you, you've got to be hurting."

"Doesn't mean I want to talk about it, whatever you may think, I'm not actually a girl."

"You're very manly. Are you happy now? But you're going to pop from manly suppression eventually."

"Are we back to the dry spell then?" He said, dodging the pillow that came flying at his head.

"Don't you _dare_ change the subject!"

"You're not actually my mother, Summers."

"Spike, I just want to be there for you," she tried, simpering and looking at him the same way she had since they were kids, sweetly and pleading, raising her voice a few octaves. Though he'd never admit it, he was a sucker for a sweet little girl, and normally did what she wanted as long as she'd stop pouting. And, damn it, if all it took to get him to talk was screwing up her lip gloss, than so be it.

"You're a determined little thing," he grinned at her, then turned serious. "Yeah, pet, it hurts, same as it always has, but he's my brother, you know how I feel about that. I don't have a choice about who I'm related too, and I love him, when he's himself."

"Yeah," she slid off of the bed and came over to his chair, settling on the ground and resting her head on his knee. They were both very tactile people and neither of them found this arrangement even the slightest bit odd, it was just what they did. Neither of them would have been comfortable with comforting the other with words, they weren't Buffy's strong suit and Spike knew she wouldn't appreciate it as much as a hug. So they were physical supports for each other when they needed to be, it was an unspoken rule that they didn't touch so much around people they were dating, or their overeager fathers and Dawn (who had all always staunchly believed the two belonged together), just in private.

"When he's not though... the things he can say, they bite, love. Deep, I know Rupes feels it too. Think he wants to escape 'bout half the time, he was never really the same after," Buffy knew what he meant, and it was too painful to elaborate on his mother's death, "and he doesn't have many people to help out with Angel, 'cept me. And I'm off gallivanting about and being generally useless to him-"

"You are not useless, Spike, you love your family and you're home as often as you can be, and you know you take care of Angel in other ways."

"I pay, you mean. For Jenny," Jenny Calendar was Angel's therapist, "and whatever he's on this month."

"And Giles wouldn't be able to do that without you!" she objected, "Jenny's the best you can get and I know she can't come cheap! And as the person who was being mailed your credit card bills for a straight year I know the drugs aren't."

"You said you didn't look," he accused, glad she'd given him the out to change the topic and knowing she'd done it on purpose, having gotten what she wanted. He sounded pathetic, but he'd been worse, and

he didn't need the mothering she'd intended on giving him.

"I lied."

_It should have been obvious then, to both of us. Looking back now, I know why it wasn't. I liked to play the big man, taking care of everyone else, scared of nothing. But I was scared of that little blonde girl, terrified of what life would be without her. _

_And with her. _

_I loved her, like a friend and so much more. I thought it was stupid though, I knew her kind of relationship and being with someone I couldn't have all of... it would kill me. But, damn it, I'd wanted her so bloody much, in every way, since long before I could remember. _


	3. Break It

**Break It**

_I made up my life, how it was all going to work out, I mean. Pretty well it turns out. But I was supposed to marry Riley. _

_Supposed to. _

_God, I hate those words. _

"What the hell, Riley? I'm not your fucking wife, you don't own me! I can do what I want, see what I want and I can sleep wherever the hell I want to!" Buffy screamed, flying off the couch in Riley's tiny apartment and flinging the pillow she'd been holding in her lap at the ground. "And if you think I'd do that to you than there's something wrong with this relationship!"

"I know his type of guy, Buffy, makes you think you're friends, then goes in for the kill," Riley spat back, and Buffy threw her head back and laughed, bitterly and almost hysterically.

"Yeah, Riley, when we were eleven and his mom introduced us it was _all_ about the sex," she said, smoothly, almost calmly but with an edge to her voice that said she was about to lose it. She'd come over to Riley's giddy from spending a night and day with Spike and hoping to get some time with Riley before she went out with Willow, Spike and Xander for some quality bonding time. Then she was going to his second last gig at the Bronze (he'd somehow signed up for a third without knowing it, Buffy had chosen, wisely, not to ask), she'd been in a fantastic mood, but Riley had looked miserable. He'd pulled her to the couch and sat her down, and told her he didn't want her spending the night at Spike's again. That's when things had escalated to where they were now.

"You say that like you haven't been screwing him for years," Riley said, standing up and towering over her, if it came down to a fistfight (which it might have at this point, even if they had never fought before), he had the advantage, but in a screaming match, there was no point in competing with the incensed blonde.

"_Screwing him?_" Buffy said, incredulous, "where the hell did you get that idea?"

"You don't think I saw the way you looked at him last night up on stage?"

"I _love_ him, Riley. He went with me through hell and back again a thousand times, that's not something that you go through without getting to care about someone. But I've never slept with him!" Buffy was angry now, the accusation, to anyone else, would have been reasonable, but to her it was outrageous.

"That doesn't mean you don't want to!" He yelled back. "And what have you been through with him that I can't understand?"

"How old were you when your mother died, Riley? What did you do when your father didn't realize you needed to be packed a school lunch every day? When your brother tried to kill you in your bed?" She snapped, "have any of those things ever happened to you? No."

"Tell me about them then- what you have with him, it's wrong and I can't stand for it."

"Then don't, Riley. Your life has been fine for all your teenaged angst and the exactly one time you tried a joint. Spike and I we've been through things no child should even know about, together. If it weren't for him, I wouldn't be alive today, do you understand that in any way? I care about you very much about you. But you will never understand that, never," Buffy turned away from him, they'd been standing the couch's width apart and screaming, but she spun to look away for a moment in the middle of her speech, and as she continued her ranting she lowered her voice and moving closer and closer to him, so that by the time she got to never, she was only inches away from him.

"Stop being so melodramatic, Buffy," he said, dismissing her. "It's weird that you two are friends, you clearly have nothing in common except some old tragedy you probably don't even really remember-"

"I was eleven, Riley, I remember every single minute I spent with my mother."

"Yeah, right. What is that, your tag? Your mother died, so you're special?" Riley had never been this inconsiderate before, Buffy would have dumped him on the spot if she'd even thought he had the potential. She was that picky, but now she was too deep into the argument to leave without having definitively won.

"What the hell do you know? You left before you could even get to know Spike, and, apparently, you decided that I am just a slave to lust."

"So you admit it that you want to?"

"No! Because I _don't_!" She didn't know when she'd gotten on the defensive, she was almost certain that when she'd started she'd been assaulting him. But then, by this point she was almost headed into rage blackout territory. Yes, people had assumed she and Spike were a couple. Yes, their parents and friends weren't so subtle in saying they could be. But damn it, he was her boyfriend, he was supposed to be the keeper guy! Oh, good, and now she was _thisclose_ to tears.

It had kind of always been her plan, fool around a bit in high school, get adjusted to university for a couple years, and then meet Mr Right. So when she'd met Riley at the beginning of last year in her Psych class, she'd been thrilled. He was smart enough, in a stable career, conservative and looking for love.

Issue: She was smarter than him and she would never have made Mensa.

Issue: His stable career was boring and seemed to consume his life.

Issue: He was _too_ conservative for her, she would never have classified herself as a raging liberal before

(that was Spike's job), but Riley was probably still working on accepting the wheel.

Issue: By 'love' he appeared to mean 'chastity belt model'.

But back to the issue at hand and not the problems she'd been trying to turn into blessings in their relationship. Which she was getting to feel might be ending. "Look, I can't trust you around a guy like him, Buffy." Riley said, reaching out to stroke a hand up and down her arm, something she was shocked to find she was more repulsed than comforted by. She ripped her arm away, with what she would realize a second later as she lost her balance and fell up against the wall, was far more force than was needed.

"I'm tired of you trying to reason with me, Riley," she said, pushing herself up off the wall and standing up to her full height. Buffy was one of those people who are, in inches and feet, short, but if you were in a room with her she had a presence that made you forget little things like that. And she was in fighting mode now. "It's my choice who I'm friends with and I chose William," she didn't even notice that she'd gone back to his given name, which she knew Spike hated, but hoped would have some sort of effect on Riley. Distract him from the rock-star Spike he'd met the night before and remind of the guy who'd spent three nights a week tutoring Buffy in English for a year.

"Yeah, well, if you're so goddamned determined to _choose_ then _choose_ me or _William_," Riley spat out, his anger getting the better of him. Buffy looked at him from where she was standing across the room.

"Riley, think about this, you're not this kind of person, or at least you never have been before. What's so special about Spike that's got you like this?" She asked, falling back on a habit of acting calm when her emotions were in turmoil. Suddenly, Buffy wasn't only angry, she was terrified and sad that it looked like her forever guy was melting away to reveal a brute that she'd never known was there.

"_He wants you!_ Can't you see that? He's not your friend, Buffy. He doesn't want that… How stupid can you be?"

Buffy froze, about to open her mouth and try once more to calm him down, but before she could say anything, he pulled his arm back and there was only the sound of skin clapping against skin and Buffy hitting the floor. She reacted instantly and without thought, getting up, ripping the door open and running down the hall pulling out her cell phone.

"Spike, please, I need help."

When Spike came roaring into the parking lot ten minutes later in his infamous Desoto, Buffy was leaning against the grey cement wall, still shocked with a bruise forming all along her left cheekbone. Spike didn't even bother pulling the keys out of the car, just ripped out of the seat and stood in front of her.

"Riley?" He said, between gritted teeth and she nodded. Then she broke down, heavy sobs that physically hurt, shivering, snot, the whole ordeal. Spikes pulled her into his arms without any more words, his jaw noticeably clenched as he tried to sooth her. He was angry beyond belief, and his thoughts were along the general lines of beating Riley to a bloody pulp, but as the small (Spike would forever find Buffy surprisingly tiny) person in his arms convulsed again, he laid those feelings aside and concentrated on her.

"Was this the first time?" He asked, Buffy nodded.

"I… I never thought Riley… he didn't seem like he… he's so…" She stumbled over her words, sniffling and letting the tears fall freely down her face, the large black mascara tracks running from her lower eyelids down to her chin.

"'S'alright, love, you're going to be good. As for that bugger," Spike cut himself off before he got a chance to get into what he'd like to do to Riley. "He only hit you the once?"

"Yeah, I ran," she mumbled, "I just need ice. And I'll be fine."

"We're going to call the cops, Buffy." Spike said, "no matter how you are."

"Yeah."

"Let's get you home," he said, "I'll fix you up there. We'll get the boys in blue in, get you some food. Don't worry, I'll take care of you." He smiled and hugged her more tightly before letting her slide into the old-fashioned bench seat of his car and getting in after her, sliding his arm over her small, shaking shoulders.

"You're going to be fine."

"I-I know," she whispered, "just take care of me for a while?" Spike grinned, thankful to see her forming full sentences.

"It's what I'm here for, love." She smiled, faintly, but she smiled, maybe her 'stable' 'forever' guy hadn't turned out that way, but she still had Spike, would always have Spike. Then the moment ended and she remembered the look on Riley's face- contorted with something worse than rage- and her faint look crumbled back into tears, forcing Spike to pull over just outside the apartment building and wrap his arms around her until she stopped shaking.

OK, well, _forced_ is a bit too strong a term. Spike was more than happy to hold Buffy in his arms for as long as was needed but seeing her cry… God, it was tearing him up into tiny shreds. He hated it when she cried. More, he'd thought until very recently, than anything else on the planet, or perhaps at least as much as he hated romantic comedies. But no, he hated Riley far, far more than he had ever hated seeing Buffy cry. And at this point he'd moved on from punching him to letting him drown in molten lava.

Spike was not the world's most peaceful man.

It was twenty-five minutes and three more roadside stops until Buffy and Spike got back to the Giles home. Buffy had known when he said 'home' that's where he meant, as kids, they'd gravitated to Spike's cozy, book-filled house as opposed to Buffy's white-and-beige dull mansion (there was no arguing the fact that that was what it was). And Giles had always (with a healthy dose of British humour and significant glasses-cleaning time) taken care of both of them, no matter how serious the problem. He would be able to handle this far more sensibly than either she or Spike.

Spike looked at her in the seat, where she was leaning against the window before speaking.

"Love, you feel up to walking to the house?"

"Spike, I'm not an invalid."

"You look like hell on wheels and that's going to be one nasty shiner, I'm trying to be nice," he spat back. Glad to see the fiery girl he knew returning, even if it was slow.

"I'll be fine, Spike, I just need a minute, alright?"

"Pet, it's me, be honest," Spike admonished her.

"You know I'm not eleven anymore, don't you?" Buffy asked and Spike grinned, having achieved his goal of getting her angry- it wasn't always pretty but it was damned effective in a pinch.

"Let's get in, alright? I was here when you called and Rupes is probably having a cow as we speak," he grinned at her as he got out of the car. She got out at the same time.

"Do we have to tell him what happened?" Buffy asked as she walked over to Spike, who was waiting in front of his ancient Desoto.

"Yes," he replied, sliding an arm around her waist.

"I told you I could walk."

"I missed you, and I'm worried about you. Aren't I allowed to worry?"

"Next you're going to set a curfew for me and pull out your dad's old STDs finger puppets," she teased, pulling away from him and poking him in the chest. The past half-hour had been a brief and unusual show of weakness, and as she moved closer to the Spike/Buffy bubble hitting the world at large and popping, Buffy pulled herself back together.

"Don't remind me…" Spike groaned, the elder Giles's sex talk had been painful and embarrassing, especially since Hank Summers had asked him to talk to Buffy at the same time. Also, they'd both been fourteen the first time Giles pulled it out and they'd known all the information _then_. Then he looked down at her, "no games, love."

"No games, I'm fine," she smiled at him weakly, but somehow, with the mascara streaks still on her face and the now vibrant bruise, it wasn't working out.

"Uh-huh," he said as they came to the porch and he slid the door open. "I'm home, Da, Ang. We got any ice packs?" he called out, coming into the front hall.

"Fridge, little blue packets," came an older English voice from somewhere in the back of the house. "Did you run into another fist, William?"

"It's Spike and no, Buffy did." Spike wanted Giles to know so Buffy couldn't rationalize her way out of telling the police, but he also didn't want to play it up. He was dancing a fine line but hoping to get the desired reaction out of both Giles (outrage and a long lecture) and Buffy (outrage and a nice call to the police).

"_What_?" Giles said, walking quickly down the small hall that divided the kitchen and his office from the front hall and living room, brushing off his glasses, "not yours, I'd hope."

"Should've shoved it into someone's face," Spike muttered, but no one heard him.

"It wasn't Will, can I have that ice pack?" Buffy asked, as Giles began to examine the bruise with the air of a former primary school teacher (three years before he'd moved on to university librarian, it had been hell).

"You'll need it, do you want some aspirin?" He asked, pulling her towards the kitchen.

"It would be nice. And can I use your phone?" Buffy asked, Spike smiled as he took off his duster and stuck it into the closet.

"You want me to stick around, Goldilocks?" Spike said, using his oldest, and favourite nickname for Buffy. If she told him to bug off, he would have said no and gone with her anyways, but if there was nothing else his father valued it was at least the _pretence_ of manners.

"You don't mind?"

"I want to, as a matter of fact," he smiled at her. "Where's Angel?" he turned to his father. When he'd flown out of the house after Buffy's phone call, Angel and Giles had been sitting in the kitchen eating.

"He's in my office, I thought it might be best…" Giles trailed off.

"Yeah." Spike nodded and collapsed into one of the kitchen chairs that had remained, unchanged, since he could remember, horrible, flowered and pink. They contrasted with the earthy tones Giles had given the house in the massive redecoration that had begun three weeks after Anne had died and transformed the entire house. For some reason, though, Angel had been attached to the chairs, and Giles had made a small compromise, but they and the various pictures scattered throughout the house were the only reminders of Anne Giles's presence. Buffy sat, as she always had, in the one closest to the window, next to Spike.

"What happened to you Buffy?" Giles asked, bustling around getting her the ice pack. She looked to Spike but he shook his head at her. Spike had seen this happen to women before, though never one so close to him, and he knew that she had to tell Giles, had to hear what Riley had done coming out of her own mouth to believe it.

"Riley… he hit me," Buffy murmured, under her breathe as Giles handed her the dishcloth-wrapped ice pack. Spike, seeing that the tears were about to start, moved quickly to kneel in front of her, looking slightly ridiculous in his red dress shirt over all black kneeling in front of this little thing in pink and blue.

"You're not holding that right, pet," he said, reaching out his hand to apply it at the right angle. "'Fraid you'll still look like Marilyn Manson for a couple days at least though."

"He hit you? Will, did you know about this? Have you called the police?" Giles spluttered finally.

"She says it was the first time," Spike said, taking over as the tears, hidden by his hands holding the ice over her cheek, continued to fall silently. "And I believe her, we're going to as soon as she feels ready to talk to them. She'll be alright, won't you?"

"Fine," Buffy managed, "I'll be fine. Just give me a few…" She sighed heavily, "I'll be fine."

"Keep saying it and it might be true, too." Came a voice from a tall, dark man standing in a door off to one side.

"Now is not the time, Angel," Spike growled out from between his teeth. He knew, in theory, that the things his brother said weren't actually under Liam's (it was his real name- Liam Angelus, but he went by Angel) control, but they still managed to infuriate him.

"Probably deserved it, filthy girl."

"Liam," Spike ground out, "Rupes, can you?" he gestured behind him to his brother.

"Yes, yes, of course. Liam?" Giles pulled his eldest son towards the front hall and the staircase.

"You know he doesn't mean that, don't you?" Spike said, "and even if he did it's a load of bullshit, you didn't bring this on yourself, Goldie."

"I know, Spike. And… and thanks, for getting me and taking care of me," she smiled at him weakly.

"Always, it's me, innit?" Spike said, getting up and settling back down in his chair. "Didn't have anything better to do anyway." He grinned at her. "So, tonight, I'll call the gig, but what do you want to do?"

"No, you should do it, Spike. I mean, we should all go, you know, just be normal. I shouldn't let Riley just take over my whole life, right?"

"You sure?"

"Yeah, I mean, I'll get Willow and some major concealing action going on with this," she gestured towards her cheek, "and we'll have a good time. Just us."

"Sure, sounds good."

An hour and a half later Spike ushered a woman from the police force out the door and returned to Buffy, who had changed into one of his old shirts and was curled up on the worn brown leather couch with a

large, steaming mug of tea.

"You sure you're feeling up to going home, pet?" He asked, she had wanted to go home after talking to the officer to get ready for that night.

"Yeah, I'm sure," she smiled at him and pulled him down to sit beside her, Spike threw an arm around her shoulder, resisting the urge (once more) to wrap her up in his arms and tell her how much he loved her and never let anyone hurt her again.

"You've been great Spike, but you should spend time with Giles, he misses you when you're not here."

"I'm worried about you, Goldilocks. I should've…"

"_William_, not everything bad in the world is your fault. But, thank you again, you're the best friend I could ask for." She kissed his cheek as she got up to call Willow and make sure she'd have someone with her (she was feeling better and wanted Spike to be with his father, but not that much better).

"I can't just be your friend much longer, Goldie," Spike murmured, resting his head in his hands.

"Look; lock, bars, pepper spray, telephone, cell phone, cell phone, alarm system," Buffy said to her nervous best friend as he walked her to her dorm room door. "Now, go home."

"I'm worried about you pet, I just want to know you're taken care of," Buffy sighed, annoyed. Yes, this was incredibly sweet, but really, Spike could take his protective act a step to far sometimes. She hugged him as they got to her door and kissed his cheek again.

"Goodbye, Spike," Buffy said, pushing him away as she opened the door.

"I'll just come in a minute, OK?"

"Riley's not going to try anything," Buffy said, resting her hand on the doorknob, "he'll be reprimanded for this, informally, and he could lose his commission if he does anything like this again. _Ever_ again, and I know this guy, he's not going to do anything that'll get him out."

"Look, Buffy, you didn't think he'd hit you, did you?" Spike said, and Buffy sighed and looked up at him, he had moved so there were only a few inches between them and she had nowhere to go but the door- it wasn't intimidation, it was protective.

"I'll be with Willow, I promise I won't even let her go to the washroom without taking me, and did you see the security guard at the door?" Buffy had calmed down, Spike, however was getting increasingly agitated. "Now go home, Spike."

"Are you sure, because if Riley-"

"Home, William."

"Yes, Ma'am," Spike said, and saluted, "but first I just want to make sure Red's in there."

"Then you'll go home?" Buffy asked, opening the door, "Hey, Will."

"Thought you said this was girly make up time?" Willow asked noticing Spike lurking in the doorway behind Buffy. "He wouldn't go home, would he?" She smiled as Buffy nodded then turned to Spike.

"Do you need to check anything else?" She pivoted and looked at the platinum blonde who was standing in the doorway of the girls room looking completely out of place amidst the stuffed animals, posters and throw pillows.

"You mind if I check your underwear drawer for weapons?" Spike said, cocking an eyebrow at her, Buffy walked over purposefully and swatted his chest before hugging him again. She wrapped her arms around his waist and rested her head on his firm chest, while Spike pulled one arm around her shoulders and the other around her waist, resting his cheek on her blonde curls. Willow, watching from where she was seated by the computer noticed the look in his eyes and smiled inwardly. Riley may have been a class-A jerk, but the man holding her closest friend in his arms was defiantly worthy and willing.

Now if only Buffy would see that.

"Go home!" Buffy commanded, releasing him and pushing him out the door. "I'll see you at nine-thirty."

"Take care of her, huh?" Spike said to Willow, who nodded before getting out of the swivel chair in front of the computer and turning to Buffy just as she door closed.

"Are you really OK?" Willow asked, Buffy pulled off her shoes and went to the closet to get a pair of sweatpants before she answered.

"I'm better, and Spike was freaking, so I figured I could go home and give him some time to relax," Buffy smiled, "melodrama makes him more annoying."

"Yeah, it kinda does. But he's just worried about you, y'know. I mean, it's sweet, isn't it? He's all knight in shining armour and you're just waiting to be rescued…"

"Yeah, and going with the mediaeval thing, he's going to put me in a garter belt after this," Buffy said, lying back on her bed after shimmying into her black sweats, keeping Spike's old concert-tee on. "Not that he'd be wrong… I have bad taste in men, don't I? I mean, it's like whenever I sleep with someone they turn to pure evil… Scott did that whole priest thing-"

"To be fair that probably wasn't your fault."

"Then Parker was just a total bastard-"

"You were the only one who didn't see that coming."

"Xander and I didn't have spark-"

"You didn't sleep with him."

"Andrew was very, very gay-"

"And without you he might not have learned that."

"OK, fine. And then Riley being a chauvinistic asshole is just the cherry on the cupcake of bad, bad, bad, bad boyfriends."

"What about the principal- the older guy, he didn't turn evil!" Willow objected.

"He was dating me because I reminded him of his _mom_, Will."

"Well, you can't always be wrong. Maybe next guy…"

"Ick, no more boys. None, a girl can't trust any man but her father… except have you _met_ my father? A girl can't trust any man but Giles," Buffy crinkled her nose, "except, of course, Giles doesn't have man-parts. Right?"

"I think it's important that you believe that. And there _is_ Spike, right? I mean, like I said, really sweet and he takes care of you."

"Yeah, but that's not a guy thing, that's just a Spike thing. I'm his Goldilocks, you know how he is." Willow sighed, maybe now wasn't the time to explain to Buffy that Spike had been head over heels in love with her for a long time.

"So, we still Bronzing it tonight?" Willow asked, "'cause, you know, shiner."

"Yeah, told Spike I wasn't going to let Riley take over my life- besides he promised he'd bring me up on stage sometime."

"Yeah, and the Dingoes are playing before Spike, so I'm supposed to go and be all roadie."

"It's only cool to date a guy in a band if you _don't _have to carry his amp around…"

"Oy!" Spike called, coming into his father's den and collapsing into the leather chair that he would forever associate with punishment (most parents ground their children, Giles sat his sons down opposite him at his desk and made them alphabetize while he lectured them).

"Did you get Buffy home?" Giles asked, raising his head from his book to look at his younger son.

"Safe as houses," Spike responded.

"So why are you twitching, exactly?"

"Worried about her, Rupes. Aren't you?" Spike said, running a hand through his slicked-back hair.

"Not as much as you and, besides, she can take care of herself. I'm just looking at a report Dr. Calendar gave me last week and," Giles trailed off. "She says he's getting worse, Will."

"I'm paying this woman that much money to tell me he's going crazier? Christ, Da, could've told you that myself." Spike said, pulling the sheet of paper away from his father and skimming it. "She recommends he be institutionalized."

"Don't sound so smug about it," Spike had always upheld that it wasn't safe for Angel and his father to live alone, that sooner or later someone was going to get hurt, Giles had fought back, saying that it was what Anne would have wanted. "I'm still not entirely sure that I should take her recommendation, perhaps a second opinion would be useful. Perhaps she's to close to us to understand fully…"

"Rupes, Jenny Calendar is one of the most highly respected doctors in this country, and she loves her job.

I now you two have been seeing each other- or at least thinking about it- but, what she says about Angel is true."

"He's never hurt anyone…"

"Do you want me to show you the scars, Da? He took a knife to me when we were kids, himself more times than I can count. Would have done the same to Willow last Christmas if I hadn't been there. I've been willing not to put up a fight about his living here while Jenny thought it was safe but I don't want either of you hurt."

"Look- that, there. You call her by her first name, far too close to trust her judgement!"

"Dad, this isn't safe for him, or you," Spike said, slowly, his voice getting lower and more accented as he got serious. "I know Mum wanted him to stay here, but when she was alive he wasn't half so dangerous as he is now. God, this house could be a deathtrap for both you. You keep a gun for Christ's sake!"

"For protection, it's never loaded."

"But there are bullets, and he knows where they are, hell, we found them before we came to bleeding Sunnydale," the Giles's had moved to Sunnydale shortly before Anne had been diagnosed.

"Look, William, I'll give you the gun tonight, dispose of it as you please, but this is his home. Will putting him in some hospital for the rest of his life make him calmer than being where he grew up?" Spike rested his head in his hands, propped up on the antique oak desk, and then raised it to look his father in the eye.

William and Rupert Giles looked nothing alike, and unless you knew you wouldn't think they were father and son, especially not since Spike had bleached his hair in high school. But looking at them now, both extremely determined and absolutely convinced they were right, the resemblance was clear.

"Your mother wanted us to keep the family together," Giles said to his son, "and I'm not going to let her down."

"I think she would also have liked to keep our heads attached to our bodies, Da. I know you don't want to talk about it, but Angel is dangerous to himself and you."

"I know, but Will-"

"I don't want to lose anyone else," Spike admitted quietly looking at his knees. He would never say it, never even really admit it to himself, but he loved his stuffy, stubborn father and he probably couldn't have taken losing him or Angel. Nor would Rupert Giles ever be able to quite admit how much his loud, annoying younger son meant to him.

"Oh, God, Will…" Giles said, repressing the urge to hold his son like a baby (however emotional, he didn't doubt for a second Spike would have hit him), "No."

"If you do this much longer someone's going to get hurt and none of us could take it if…" Spike pulled his head up and looked at her father, "Da, we barely survived losing Mum."

"I know, Will."

"No good can come of Angel staying here."

"I don't know about that… he's used to it and I'm-"

"Mum wanted what was best for him, and this is what it is." Spike waved the form from where it had been sitting on the desk. "When she was here Angel was just demented, he babbled, he cut me the one time, but if he got his hands on a gun in the wrong mood? God help us."

"I know. I said I'd give you the gun."

"Or a butter knife, or a rock," Spike said, "you'd have to live in a house made of marshmallows for this to be safe."

"That's an over exaggeration, William."

"It's not and you know it damn well."

"I can take care of my own son!" Giles said, slamming his fist down on the table, the compassionate mood of a few moments before dissipating visibly. Being replaced with both men's raw emotions. Blood and loyalty probably meant more to both of them than it should have, and they were both displaying that very clearly at the moment.

"I'm not saying you can't. I'm just saying other people might be better at it. People who are professionally trained to help people like Angel, Da."

"He's my son for Christ's sake, William! I love him and I don't want to fail him!"

"You wouldn't fail him, you'd be helping him. Please, see some sense about this. Mum couldn't tell the

future, she asked you to do what she thought was right, and it isn't right anymore."

"I promised her, Will."

"It was ten bloody years ago, and there's a good chance she was sodding delusional!"

"And there's just as good a chance she meant it!"

"She's still dead, Da, even if you do keep your promises!"

"And I still love her even if she's dead!"

"And the rest of us don't? Da, I know you loved her, I know how amazing she was… God, she was my mum, wasn't she? But she's gone and you're the only parent we've got left, and right now, Angel needs your mind to be clear." Spike said, calming down after his father's last words and looking at him evenly in the eye.

"Alright, I'll get the pamphlets from Jenny when we go in tomorrow, and we can look over them. I don't know if I can afford-"

"On me, Da, it's family. And while you're down there anyway, why don't you ask that chit out on a date already… can't go that badly. Though, you've got to remember that thing I told you about girls and the oper-"

"I am still the bloody adult here!"

"Uh-huh. So, like I was saying…"

Buffy smiled as she heard the knock on her door, wincing as she moved the muscles beneath her bruise, it was early yet for Spike, but she and Willow had both known he wouldn't be able to leave her alone for as long as he'd said he was going to.

"Hey," she said as she opened up the door, "admire the make-up magic."

"Very pretty, pet. I hope you never have to do it again. Where's Red?"

"Getting ready, what's up with you?"

"Nothing."

"You're all bad-moody."

"I'm fine."

"So, what'd you and Giles fight about?" Buffy asked, he was her best friend and she had been there when he was a teenager- he and his father simply didn't get along. Ever. They loved each other but they just didn't 'mesh'.

"Angel, and how'd you know?"

"I know you, Spike, who won?"

"Think I did, but it's nothing to be happy about, he's going to look into… for Angel… I mean."

"Homes," Buffy supplemented for him.

"Not bloody homes, they'll never be homes…"

"I know," Buffy said, not knowing that was going to become the keyword of the next twenty minutes.

"When's Red going to be back?"

"Twenty minutes, you're early."

"Can we talk?"

_I, personally, think there's a fair few ways we could make this a more interesting story, starting with history. Let me tell you something, you're probably thinking that in all the years Buffy and I were friends there had to have been one kiss- in fact, it wouldn't be all that surprising if we'd lost our virginity to each other on prom night. _

_Pffut. _

_I'd never even **kissed** Buffy (wasn't for lack of thinking of it) anywhere else but the cheek, top of her head and hand. I loved her, even then, but we'd never done anything that would make anyone think we were anything more than platonic. _

_How's that for back-story? _

_Like I said, bloody boring._


	4. Tell Her Tonight

**Tell Her Tonight **

**A/N: The song is Tell her Tonight, by Franz Ferdinand, who are amazing. Listen to their CDs. The second song in 'Stupid Thing' by Nickel, and, yes, it is the 'School Hard' song. They are pathetic attempts to make the chapter longer so I can get it up by ever but leave me alone! Except not in a review way… please review! And thanks to those of you who did! And I'm sorry this chapter took so long, life's been funky. I've decided to give writing Spike's accent a try, if it sucks, tell me and I'll stop. This chapter is also of the sucky, but hey, it's posted, right? **

_When Spike- actually, I still called him William then- was sixteen he lost his virginity to Drusilla, I had known about it, and I had asked him to come tell me what sex was like. He brought a carton of cigarettes- I was smoking then- but I quit, unlike some I could name. _

_Cough Spike Cough. _

_Anyway, we talked about it, and I asked him if she hadn't wanted him to stay. He told me that I was his first girl, always would be. _

_Did he know then what we would be in the end? What he started that night? Did I know? Did I want to know? Would I have stopped it? _

_Maybe. Maybe. Sort of. No. Yes. _

_I would have stopped the world to keep things just the same as they were in that moment, me in my flannel pyjamas, Spike in leather with newly-bleached hair and the smell of tobacco. Maybe that's why they don't let us know the future. We might change it. _

Buffy took the drink from Spike's hands and took a sip.

"Coke, no rum, as requested. And may I mention, you're absolutely no fun," Spike said, settling down next to her with his beer.

"You, William Giles, have a reputation, you know," Buffy said, darkly, grinning at him, "get a girl drunk and take her to bed."

"You have one too, Elizabeth Summers, cold as ice."

"You take that back!" Buffy said, taking her drink and holding it threateningly over his head. They had spent half-an-hour talking about Angel and Giles, and a few minutes devoted to Riley, before both deciding they wanted tonight to be about having fun.

"Fine, fine, you're a slut. Happy?"

"Better," she laughed, "you know what I've just realized?"

"No, pet, sure it's nothing I don' know already," Spike said, revelling in the easy banter and the sound of

her laugh.

"I'm single."

"And a bloody blessing it is," Spike said, noticeable venom in his voice.

"And…"

"And what?"

"It's been a while since I've had a fling."

"Oh, has it, then?" Spike said, clenching his hand around his beer.

"Yup, it has."

"So, you've decided that since you can' judge someone after a year you'll just spend a few weeks screwing some bastard senseless?" Spike said, jealousy and possessiveness making him angry.

"Spike," Buffy said, laying a flat on top of his on the table, "calm down. I was kidding… well, sort of. And,

you're supposed to be the badass friend who makes me get into trouble and do drugs and stuff."

"Thought the castin' call was for a dashingly handsome Englishman to provide sarcastic retorts and sex appeal," he said, smirking.

"Sex appeal? With _that_ hair?" She teased, "you've got to stop bleaching it, you know. It'll all fall out

before you turn thirty."

"No, it won'."

"Denial."

"Well, yeah, but lemme enjoy it, huh?" Buffy laughed and Spike took the moment to appreciate the way

her eyes closed ever so slightly when she laughed and her cheeks dimpled in the most adorable places.

"Wigs are very in right now."

"I remember when you were sweet and reserved," Spike muttered under his breath, just before being assaulted by a gangly teen with long brown hair, who swung her arms around his neck, nearly strangling

him.

"You've been home _how_ long and you didn't come see me?" Dawn, now sixteen, said as Spike eased out from her arms to turn to look at her.

"Um… a day. And since when do you go to the Bronze?" Spike responded, he hadn't seen Dawn when he'd been home for Christmas six months ago and was shocked that apparently puberty had come and gone without bothering to tell him. "And, where's the other half of your shirt?"

"You're right, he is turning into Giles," Dawn said to her sister, "and since always. If you ever came home you'd know that."

"Since always, huh?" Spike asked, "suppose you're to old t' put on my lap, so why don' you go fetch a chair." Dawn, looked at him, clinically.

"I think I'm taller than you now, but you're still the guy. You go get my chair."

"_Dawn_!" Buffy chastised.

"What? It's Spike, he's like family," Dawn said, "you don't mind, do you?"

"You're the naggin', screechin', whinin' brat of a sister I always dreamt of. But you're getting your own damn chair. And you're _not_ taller than me."

"Am too."

"Are not."

"Am-"

"Dawn, stop nagging. Spike, either be a gentleman or get crushed by her," Buffy said, feeling very much like she was dealing with oversized toddlers.

"We'd better behave, Nibblet, or she'll send us to bed without dessert," Spike said feigning terror and a

wide-eyed look of boyish innocence, that, for some inexplicable reason, made Buffy's stomach do some pretty amazing gymnastics.

"You know, she might not be able to, but I can," said a British voice from behind Spike, who immediately whirled around and looked at his father and brother, slack jawed.

"Dear God, Da, I didn' even know you knew about the… or that you… um… I," Spike stuttered, to Buffy and Dawn's obvious enjoyment. Even though, both had to admit, they'd never before seen anything quite

as incongruous as Giles at the Bronze.

"Breathe, Will," Angel advised calmly. "Hi, Buffy, I'm sorry about what I said today it was…" he trailed off.

"I know, you didn't mean it," Buffy grinned, "I like the new look," she gestured to Angel's black and grey clothing and leather jacket.

"Yeah, you look good, Lee," Spike said, grinning as his brother cringed hearing the childhood nickname, it was payback for the 'Will'.

"You know, I gave you both perfectly acceptable names and I don't see why-"

"'ve got to go," Spike said, cutting of his father's lecture, "still want t' come up on stage, pet?"

"You promised," Buffy said, "and you heard what he said about the dessert."

"Great, gimme a couple songs to get warmed up and 'll go. Oh, and when Harris and his demon girl get here, tell her I'm not wearin' the soddin' t-shirt. Ever," Spike vacated his seat, bowing to Dawn and kissing her absentmindedly on the cheek as he slid backstage.

Two songs later, Anya and Xander were there, Anya was fuming after Buffy had explained that Spike wouldn't wear Anya's store's logo on stage, ever, no matter how close they were, a sweaty Oz who was still on a caffeine/sort-of-mosh-pit high was tickling Willow, who was on his lap. Buffy was idly talking to Angel about what going to college was like and if she thought he could ever take night classes, and Giles was telling Dawn to pull up her marks and stop 'slacking off', Dawn was reminding him once more that he was the father of Spike, who was the king of all slackers back in high school.

"He's a genetic mutation," Giles grumbled, right before Spike started talking into the microphone on stage.

"'ll do absolutely anything to be seen in public fondlin' a beautiful woman, includin' seducin' girls with fame" Spike said, trademark smirk firmly in place, "so, in the interest of me gettin' some, can I bring Goldilocks up on stage?" Spike gestured to Buffy, who grinned and bounced out of her seat, "oh, and Rupes? I'm a grown-up now, you can' ground me for that." Spike smirked and wound his arm around Buffy waist, pulling her close to him so he could whisper in her ear. "You reckon he'll try anyway?"

"You know it," she grinned, "and there isn't going to be _any_ fondling."

"How about oglin', can I ogle? 'Cause I'll feel very left out if I'm the only guy over two and under a hundred and two not lookin' you in the ches'," Spike said, completely straight-faced.

"No ogling, no groping, no fondling, just dancing," Buffy said, "speaking of?"

"Oh, right, stage, mike," Spike said. Nodding to Clem, his guitarist, they started the fast song.

_I only watched her walk, but she saw it _

_I only heard her talk, but she saw it _

_I only touched her lips but she saw it _

_I only kissed her lips, but she saw it _

Spike and Buffy put on a show, full with one of Spike's barely steady fingers tracing Buffy's lips as she swung her hips outrageously. Spike was taken aback, not for the first time, at how easy it was for her to go from girl next door to seductress in ten seconds flat.

As Spike's warm finger traced the outer edges of her lip, Buffy could hardly restrain the sudden urge to take it into her mouth, and then follow it by attaching herself firmly to it's owners lips. Maybe she had a concussion or something, or maybe those eyes… God, just looking into his eyes seemed to have sudden almost hypnotic qualities. It wasn't as if she'd never noticed them before, but somehow as he sang this song, the tones of azure seemed to shift around and demand all her attention.

_Gonna have to tell her tonight _

_She only flicked her eyes, but I saw it _

_She only swung her hair, but I saw it _

_She only shook her hips, but I saw it _

_She only licked her lips, but I saw it _

_Gonna have to tell her tonight _

Spike watched as she got into it, shaking her hips, moving her eyes exaggeratedly, playing with him and every other man watching for all she was worth. Which, he thought, as she whipped her neck and her soft blonde hair slid past his hand, was definitely a lot. Then she licked her lips and he was gone, totally and completely lost in her eyes and surprised to find he was still singing and moving along with her apparently without the benefit of his mind. He shocked himself as he put his hands on her hips as they swayed steadying them, and almost fainted as she took a sharp breath.

_Hey, I'll have to tell her, you tell her tonight, yeah _

_I'll have to tell her, tell her tonight, yeah _

_I'll have to tell her, to tell her tonight, yeah _

_I'll have to tell her, to tell her tonight _

_I only held her hand, but she saw it _

_I only watched her walk, but she saw it _

_I only touched her neck but she saw it _

_I only kissed her lips, but she saw it _

_Gonna have to tell her tonight _

As Spike's fingertips ran down the column of Buffy's neck, all of the reasons why she couldn't be with Spike fled out of her mind, quickly vanishing leaving something… _other_ behind. It's sounds ludicrous, but it was, it was in that instant, that song, that at least five years of restraints fell quickly away, leaving behind the sensation that something had been gained.

_Hey, I'll have to tell her, you tell her tonight, yeah _

_Hey, I'll have to tell her, you tell her tonight, yeah _

_You have to tell her, you tell her tonight, oh yeah_

Buffy grinned at Spike as he pulled away and began a spiel into the next song, trying to ignore the feeling in her stomach at losing contact with him. As she stepped offstage to the relieved sighs of several girls with only a kiss on the cheek that she could feel burning for hours afterwards, she wanted to still be touching him. It was a weird feeling, definitely new and defiantly prominent in her thoughts as she sat down next to Anya, who she shouldn't have expected to be helpful.

"You two look good together. You should exchange orgasms."

"Ahn…" Xander said, resting his head in his hands. Buffy just grinned at both of them.

"It's alright, Xan, she just says what she means," Buffy said, mentally wondering why Anya had to pick now of all times to make one of her subtle-like-an-elephant-doing-the-cancan-in-your-shower matchmaking attempts.

"See, I've been telling you that if you all stopped-"

"Let's dance, huh?" Xander said, pulling on Anya's hand, quickly and effectively cutting her off. Buffy giggled into her hand as they left. They were an absolutely adorable couple, and completely devoted to one another. Even if she doubted Anya had admitted to herself that it wasn't just about the sex yet.

"You know," Giles said, as he sat in Anya's abandoned seat, "never tell him I said this. But Spike's not half-bad at what he does."

"He's good at it," Buffy agreed, "and he loves it."

"That he does. Are you alright, I know that this afternoon was…"

"Not something I'm going to bring up tonight. Emotions were running high," Buffy said, and Giles understood her meaning. He had known that the first thing his son would do was run to Buffy for advice after the highly charged conversation with him.

"Yes," Giles agreed, and he decided that now would be an excellent time to change the topic. "So, how are you doing in your psych course, I know you were struggling…"

Buffy quickly found herself lost in the mundane conversation about her psych class, and her thoughts returned to Spike, who was now winding down with a couple of slow songs. She could admit that during that dance she'd felt more lust than she had in a long time. It hadn't been about emotions, it had been about sex. But then, at the end, when he was looking into her eyes and touching her… there had been a feeling she wasn't used to. It felt like she wanted to possess him, but at the same time wanted to be his possession. To hold and be held in return.

Dear God, she was turning into a romance novel. And it had always been her private suspicion that those couples were happy for about six months, and then realized they had nothing in common except for lust and interlocking body parts.

Though, a rebellious part of her mind hinted, insistently, she had a great deal in common with Spike. Not only the things that had originally brought them together, but shared tastes that had grown from their years of friendship. There was no one else who would eat pickles dipped in peanut butter with her, or watch _Clueless _for the thirty-fourth time simply to make fun of it. More similar thoughts followed. Buffy tried, at first, to fight them off, combating them with one of the thousand reasons they couldn't work, but suddenly, her resolve tired out, and she let herself fantasize. Pretending that it was only that.

"Dance with me?" Angel asked, "seeing as my oaf of a brother has finally left you alone?" Buffy grinned, looking over at where Spike was deep in conversation with Oz and Xander, they had declared a few minutes ago that it was guy time, and left she, Willow, Anya, Giles and Angel without their company to settle in a corner.

"Sure," Buffy said, deciding the fast song was alright for a dance with Angel, he seemed fine, but she knew from experience that that didn't guarantee anything five minutes from now. She made eye contact with Spike before getting up to dance with his brother, wondering if she'd just imagined the clenching of his jaw. She decided, finally, that she had, but that was mostly to prevent herself from going completely insane.

"You know, I've always wondered why you and my brother never had a thing," Angel said as they moved to the center of the dance floor together.

"Me? And Spike? You've got to be kidding me," Buffy laughed, "we'd spend half our time arguing and the other half making out. You know your brother and his women."

"Yeah, Spike and his girls. But, I don't know, I just always kind of thought that there'd by Drusilla and then he'd get over that and then he'd come to his senses and get together with you."

"Come to his senses? Spike has senses?"

"Smell, touch, taste, sight, hearing. All of the above in fact, plus, I mean, any guy looking at you and not slobbering has got to be gay or something. Any guy looking at you for hours every day and not on his knees begging for just one date is quite obviously blind, deaf and most probably mute as well."

"Flirt," she accused lightly, "you're both like brothers to me, it's kind of gross to think about it. And we both know Spike's anything but mute."

"Yeah, well, no one ever said he wasn't short a couple boxes of crayons," Angel replied cheerfully, "and, also, he really wants to dance with you. So, here you go." Angel took her hand and spun her into his brother's waiting arms.

"Thanks mate, an' stop puttin' ideas in the bint's head, 'f it were up to you and Da, you'd have had me married off when I was eighteen."

"I'm not saying marriage, I'm saying sex."

"Liam Robert Giles!" Buffy said.

"Angel!" Spike burst out at the same time. "Da'll wash your mouth with soap if I tell him you said that."

"We're adults now, Will."

"Oh, we may be, Angel, but the judges are still out on him. " Buffy said, as Spike took her in his arms and started spinning her, Angel, with a satisfied grin, turned away, walking away to sit with his father.

_I'm one step away from crashing to my knees.  
_

_One step away from spilling my guts to you._

I did a stupid thing last night,  


_I called you.  
_

_I'm doing all right.  
_

_No, don't feel sorry for me,  
_

_Really, I'm all right._

I'm one step away from crashing to my knees.  


_One step away from spilling my guts to you.  
_

_You see, there's this huge chunk of me missing.  
_

_It's gone.  
_

_And I can' feel it, I can't feel it,  
_

_I can't feel._

As the song began to wind down, Spike and Buffy got less passionate in there dancing, and reverted to slowly dancing, close together, talking.

"'T's a horrible move, blondie, but 't's got a good ending," Spike admitted.

"You cannot diss _Win a Date With Tad Hamilton_," she said. "And what's so good about the ending that it earns your approval?"

"Oh, yes I bloody well can. And 't's got a good kiss, makes it almost worthwhile to sit through the rest of

the bloody drivel."

"Romantic," she accused.

"And you aren'?"

"I'm a girl, doesn't count as much."

"Sexist."

"Maybe, but am I sexy?" She teased.

"Oh, now there's a question with no right answer."

"You mean I'm not? Spikey, you wound me with your words," Buffy mocked him. Spike would never quite know what had compelled him to do what he did next, maybe it was being so close to her in the first place, maybe it was just all they flirting they'd been doing since they were fourteen finally working it's magic. Or, perhaps, as with so many other things, it was just time for it to happen.

"Course you are, Princess," he said, bringing his head that much closer to hers to whisper it in her ear, and both of them were certain that she made the final move of connecting their lips. To her, thinking about it, it just seemed the natural thing to do.

And, God, did it feel like it, his lips were firm but soft, warm moving under hers as his tongue moved slowly against her lips, teasing her. It felt like the most wonderful thing in the world to let this man in, to wrap her arms around his neck and press herself into him, tilt her head only slightly upwards instead of the usual ninety-degree angle for Riley. She closed her eyes and leant farther into him, allowing him to support her and letting her own tongue come out to play, and she smiled into the kiss when he shyly entered her mouth.

Spike, on the other hand, felt something so strange that it took him a minute to recognize it. It had been so long since he'd kissed someone without it being a prelude to something else, if he had ever done that. He felt tenderness, love, adoration and the need to hold this woman and never let her go. At the same time, he felt like a schoolboy who had no clue what he was doing with the most popular girl in the class. It took him a bit longer than it normally would have to get his arms around her waist and start kissing her in earnest.

Buffy was the first to pull back for air, and she found herself looking slightly upwards as she tried to regain her breath and watched Spike do the same thing.

"Christ, Goldilocks…" he managed. "What'd you go an' do that for?"

"You didn't…" Buffy said, slightly unsure, and only not turning away from him because of the death grip he still had around her waist as the next song, a slow one, started.

"Like it? Loved it. You have no idea-"

"Will!" Spike turned just in time to see his brother barrelling towards him as his father, in pursuit called out. Recognizing the look in Angel's eyes, he quickly shoved Buffy behind him.

"You don' wanna do this, Lee," he said. He knew that if it came down to it, he could have his brother restrained in a matter of seconds, but sometimes he could talk him down when he had these attacks

"You can't have the sunshine, William," the taller man hissed back at him. "Not always you. The stars say

it isn't always you. The sunshine was never yours, no, a man cursed-" And that's when Giles and the syringe arrived.

Within a few minutes, Angel was out and on his way to the hospital to be monitored after being given the sedative that his father always carried around in case he got violent, Buffy came from where she'd retreated to the bathroom to see Spike just as the ambulance was leaving and he was promising to follow in a minute or two.

"Hey," she said, shyly, even though she'd decided to simply ignore the kiss, and even if she was going to think about it, blame it on the atmosphere of the moment. And maybe a bit of stress from what had happened with Riley that afternoon. "I should go, but I just wanted to check you were OK. I've got to, um, take Dawn home, because she's sixteen and can't drive and Giles drove her. And then I've got a class in the morning so I really want to go to the hospital, but then, it's not really my business and-"

"Babblin', love."

"Oh, sorry, it's just the, uh-"

"I know. 'll be fine and so'll Peaches," he turned to her, "but about before Angel-"

"Buffster, you coming or what?" Xander called from across the parking lot. Buffy had never been more

thankful for the existence of one person in her lifetime.

"I'll call you after class, OK? We could do lunch, or, um, something. A thing, yeah. We could do a thing."

"A thing sounds good. Round elevinish?"

"Yeah. A thing. Around eleven. A brunch sort of thing. But you'll be OK?"

"Yeah, hell, 've got a whole brunch sort of thing t' look forward to," Spike replied, summoning a smile from somewhere. "Tell the bit 'll take her out for ice cream."

"Yeah, you, Dawn, ice cream. Got it."

"Bye, pet."

"Bye," she said, and turned before he could kiss her on the cheek.

Spike felt an odd sort of wrenching as she turned. He'd been so close. So _damned_ close to her. In the way he'd wanted to be since he could remember and his idiot of a brother had picked that precise moment to-

He took a deep breath and fumbled in his pocket for his lighter and a cigarette pulling one out as he made his way over to his car and puffing until he felt much calmer. Only then did he allow his mind to wander back to the kiss, it hadn't been monumental, it hadn't changed his life. If anything, it had made his life more the same, had made the fact that he was in love with her just that much more present in his mind. And, oh, Christ, had it made him want her all the more but…

_Plus sa change, plus sa reste le meme. _

The more things change, the more they stay the same. He loved her, had loved her for what seemed like forever. He wanted her and had since puberty. All that had changed was the maudlin sense of desperation that had always gone hand-in-hand with his feelings for the blonde. Instead there was a sense of something he couldn't quite call hope, just a chance.

Yeah, that was it a chance. And his bloody, buggering oaf of a brother-

Spike threw his cigarette out the window rather harder than he had to, and roared out of the parking lot of the Bronze, seething.

Normally, after an attack like that when his meds stopped working, Angel was sedated enough to be seeing bunnies for hours afterwards, so it wasn't until almost three in the morning that he was awake enough to have a conversation. Giles had gone home an hour before, to his younger sons promise that he'd phone every hour on the hour and get some sleep, so Spike was left alone in the hospital room with a _People_ magazine and his comatose brother, still going back and forth between enraged, depressed, and worrying about Angel.

"Time?" Angel croaked from the bed.

"Three in the bloody buggerin' mornin'."

"You're pissed."

"A li'l bit, yeah."

"Where's Dad?"

"Home, decided it was a better place for the heart attack you were givin' him."

"We were at the Bronze, right?"

"Yeah," Spike replied, edging away from the subject and getting up to buzz one of the nurses from the button beside his brother's bed, but Angel, not to be deterred, caught his wrist in one hand.

"You an Buffy- you kissed- and then I-" he pause, as if to think what he had done, "oh, shit, sorry."

"Wasn' you."

"I know, but still, I shouldn't have gone, not when I do stuff-"

"It wasn' your fault and you know it. Look, 'm jus' a bit brassed 'cause I was kissin' a beautiful girl an' I got interrupted. An' 'm tired. An' Buffy's gone all odd on me now. Did us a favour, breakin' us up, would've said some things I couldn'a taken back come mornin'."

"You wouldn't have, though," Angel interjected, "anyone can see how you look at her, Spike. And if I hadn't, you two might have-"

"No matter what happened she would've taken it back the next day," Spike said. "An' it was a one-off of a kiss anyway, bloody amazin', but she's a tirin' lady an' she's my friend."

"She's Buffy, not your friend."

"The difference bein'?" Spike said, settling beside his brother, knowing well that when he got this determined about something, it was either hear him out or resort to physical force.

"Most of your friends your not in love with."

"'m not in love with her."

"Yeah, and I'm sane. You're saying that if she came up to you and kissed you again, you'd do nothing?"

"'m sayin' that Goldie's my friend an' 'm not losin' her as that. An', 'm also sayin' if you fancy any chance of ride home, you'd better get to whatever sort of point you've got hidden in all this rot."

"Look, Spike, I wrecked your first kiss-"

"That wasn' you."

"No, but I'm still taking the blame. Just, let me try to fix it, OK? I know you love her, hell, everyone knows you love her. Everyone who knows Buffy is a little bit in love with her. And I know she feels something for you, I don't know what it is, but you can see it, when she doesn't know that anyone's watching her, she looks at you like, I don't know, like she's hungry or something."

"Hungry?"

"I'm not good at metaphors. Like she wants something, I don't know, like she wants something, and she knows what, but she can't get any. Or doesn't know where they sell it, or something. And when you look at her- you're like a romance novel or something, you adore her, and everyone but Buffy knows it," Angel looked his brother firmly in the eyes, "and she should know," then, apparently pleased that he'd said everything he needed to, "you should call the nurse now."

"You-I-_Liam_!" Spike spluttered, "you can say something that bloody- cheeky comes to mind- insightful and then-"

"Yeah, take me home. And, again, I'm really sorry."

"You know, we're gonna have a long talk about your meds and lookin' a' homes tomorrow," Spike said suddenly serious, moving from his love life to Angel's life.

"I know, I don't want to talk about it, OK? My head's still kind of swirling."

"Oh, joy, insights from the drugged now. Bloody fabulous, Peaches."

Buffy came into the dorm tired and wanting absolutely nothing more than to collapse on her bed and either die or sleep for a very, very long time. She'd been met at her father's house by an irate father, who had demanded to know why she was off 'gallivanting' with her sister at such late hours with 'that crowd', and then had pulled her aside to talk about Dawn's dating life for half an hour.

"You kissed him!" Willow crowed from her bed.

Buffy had a horrible feeling she wouldn't be sleeping for a very long time.

"I keep on saying you should exchange orgasms," Anya added, from where she was sitting on the windowsill.

She had a very sudden urge to cry.

"Spill!" Willow demanded.

"There was music, and darkness, and touching, and then there was kissage. Then Angel had one of his moments, attacked us, Spike followed him to the hospital, I went home. It was nothing," Buffy said, "can I sleep?"

"Nothing?" Anya spluttered, looking down at her nail file, and then back up at Buffy, "_nothing_? You kissed _William Giles_,****William Has-Loved-You-For-Ever-And-A-Day-And-Also-Happens-To-Be-Sex-On-A-Stick Giles and all you're saying this was nothing."

"Spike's not in love with me, I just broke up with Riley, I don't got for the bad boy thing, and I'm very, very tired," Buffy said, ticking them off on her fingers. "It was just a kiss. We're not in junior high any more."

"It wasn't just a kiss," Willow said, "you don't 'just kiss' like that. Not with the tongues, and the naughty hands, and the sighs and the stuff."

"There was no naughty touching," Buffy said, turning resignedly to her closet and pulling out a pair of pyjama bottoms and a tank top.

"You were thinking it," Willow accused, "you were thinking hands all over the place, and was I the only one who saw Spike making some adjustments?"

"I saw," Anya said, raising her hand cheerfully, "and this denial thing's getting old. Buffy, if you can't see what's right in front of you, break his heart and get it over with so the rest of us can have him. Not that I want him, I've got Xander. But I know girls, and a couple men, who would really, really, like him," Buffy didn't dignify that with a response, instead choosing to put her pyjamas on and get in bed, hoping that her friends would go away if she just tried hair enough to imagine them away.

"I know, even Spike's out of denial. And he's stubborn," Willow threw in.

"And they'd make an adorable couple. Oh, and, Buffy? Stop ignoring us," the only response Anya got was a grunt from beneath a sizeable pile of pillows and blanket that Buffy had somehow got herself under. "I know you're all emotionally repressed, but he's a sweet guy, and he's not as stupid as most of them. So, maybe you should get off your hurting high horse and look at what you've got."

"What?" Buffy said, sitting up and looking at Anya, "I am not on a 'hurting high horse' I'm just, taking care. Of me."

"Yeah, well, you're doing a great job at picking them so far," Anya spat back, "and then there's the perfect man, just sitting there, waiting for you, and what do you do? 'He's my friend, I couldn't,'" She raised her voice several octaves and fluttered her lashes.

"He is my friend," Buffy claimed, "my best friend, I don't want to lose him."

"You're not doing any favours by holding him at arms length, he wants you, he loves you, you want him. Why can't you just jump? He's the type who'll catch you," Anya said.

"What is this, Some sort of intervention?" Buffy asked, turning on Willow, "'cause I can handle my very own life, thanks all the same."

"It's not an intervention it's a-a," Willow stuttered, "yeah, it's kind of intervention-y. Anya's right, you obviously can't see Spike for what he is, so m-maybe someone needs to t-tell you before you go and spoil something that could have been great."

"It could also suck royally," Buffy said.

"But it wouldn't," Anya replied, "and, you'll never know. Do you want to end up sort of happy, watching him move on to another girl and be sort of happy, and know that you could have been all the way happy- not to mention getting happies- the whole time."

"I also don't want to be unhappy without Spike," Buffy replied, "I'm not sure that I'd," she paused. "How is this any of your business again?"

"We care about you, a-and Spike," Willow said, "and w-we want you two to get your acts together, literally."

"Will, you know that I couldn't-" Buffy said, softly, turning to look at her closest female friend.

"Oh, you could, you just won't. There's a big difference," Willow explained. "And you should, you know."

"Should I?"

"Yes, and if you're going to keep playing the denial game, Xand's probably waiting for me by now, so, bye," Anya said, leaving. "And, again, Buffy. You, Spike, happies. Or I'll get grouchy." Buffy and Willow both watched her leave before speaking again.

"I know it's going to be scary," Willow said, turning to her blonde friend, "and probably really hard. But I just think that it fits, y'know? I mean, sometimes, with people, you just sort of _know_ that it's supposed too happen. And you, and Spike, it feels like a supposed too. And maybe we're all wrong, but do you want to miss your supposed too person? Do you want to miss the long haul guy? I'm not going to nag any more- 'cause, with the nagging, mostly Anya, right? But, just, think about it, ok?"

"Yeah," Buffy said, quietly, "I'll think."

_Before her, I thought for a long time that I could do anything with willpower. But, God, no matter how long I tried, or how hard, I couldn't rip myself away from that little girl. Watching her sometimes, even now, it's hard to stop. Hard not to reach out and hold her. _

_It was harder then. _

_Christ, so much harder then. _

_But I tried, really hard, and I think it paid off. The waiting, I mean. We weren't built to be some perfect first love, we were built to fight, screw, cry, smile and love together. We were meant to live together, for the rest of our lives, that's what we were built for. _


	5. Come Morning

**Come Morning **

**A/N and Disclaimer: I own nothing. I am not making any money from this. Thank you so much for the reviews- they are the bestest things ever! Ignore the line ''m not little' it is simply a tribute to Little Ivanhoe, now sadly deceased. This chapter's song is 'Serenade' by Leona Naess, I am not a poet, and I do love to include music, so be glad I'm stealing other people's stuff rather than trying to write my own! Oh, and did you notice how fast I updated! **

_Drusilla Hawkins is without a doubt the most horrible person on the face of the earth. I say this here and now, because this is an extremely biased story, and you should know. _

_Spike loved Drusilla more than life itself- the only way he can love- and Drusilla cheated on him with a half-dozen guys not worth half of him. Everyone but Spike knew and he didn't believe us. And when he found out… when he found out it broke him. He lost his resolve and just sort of… faded. _

_He was still Spike, all snark and pride, but the part of him that's William- friendship, love and unswerving loyalty, it got lost in the middle of whatever it was he was going through. He drank, a lot more than he usually does, and worse, Clem told me years later. _

_But he got found. **I** found him, and that's all that will ever matter about that story. Spike came back into living colour, and Drusilla is the most horrible person on the face of the earth. _

"Hey," Buffy said, overly cheerfully, into her cell phone as she walked off campus, quickly. Riley had been begging for forgiveness since he'd captured her outside of the literature class Spike had talked her into taking, even though she didn't want too. She had finally reminded him that a restraining order was still fully in the cards, and stormed off, but she didn't exactly trust him to stay away.

"Mmphgrr," Spike mumbled into his in his bedroom at Giles's, where he hadn't slept in years, but had been somehow coaxed into doing the night before. He understood it was almost eleven in the morning and he wasn't awake, let alone ready to pick Buffy up for brunch. He was also exhausted, pissed off, frustrated and deprived of a fantastic dream about the petite blonde. It had involved a Christmas tree and a

chandelier and probably shouldn't be spoken about in public. "'t's early."

"A little."

"You just agreed with me. Wha's wrong?" Spike asked, running a hand through his hair as he sat up and stretched his cramped legs- bunk beds might have seemed an excellent idea at twelve, but he had only just remembered what a bitch they'd been after his tenth-grade growth spurt, and was not enjoying it.

"Nothing," at that point, the various things wrong with Spike's life and current disposition attacked.

"Look, pet, we kissed. We'll talk, jus' not righ' now. Soon, 'cause otherwise it'll drive you outta your li'l blonde head. But, 'm very tired, and 've got some pieces to say a' home this mornin' that can't go withou' sayin'. So'm cancellin' our thing, but stop bein' in denial and stop not bein' you, 'cause it doesn' amuse. Have a good day, gimme a call if your former's up to any tricks a' all. Got me?"

"Got you," Buffy said, slightly shell shocked from the outburst- she'd kind of expected Spike to go into the same land of the dreamy denial she was so happy in. And, yet, something new struck her in the obvious concern behind the words, something different that set off a burning feeling in her stomach.

"You're still agreein'," Spike accused, "whatever weird mojo was workin' on you last night, we're still us, 'f you can boil it down to three sentences or less- an' short words'd be a favour too, 'll deal with the problem," Buffy grinned, suddenly back in the territory of the familiar. Spike's firm belief that he could fix most things wrong with her life was almost comforting.

"I didn't hate kissing you," she blurted, quickly as she came up to her dorm.

"No' many women do," Spike said. "'f you did I woulda been more worried 'bout your datin' than usual."

"Did you hate kissing me?" Buffy asked, nervously, and not quite sure why she wanted to know at all. Though she did know it was vitally important he respond that he hadn't.

"Have you seen you? 'Course I didn', but we'll talk abou' it later," Spike said, cheerfully, taking the fact that she wanted to know as a good sign for him. Buffy smiled, though she still had no clue why and remembered, as she had been doing since she woke up, the soft feel of his embrace and the taste of his lips against hers.

"Yeah, Dawn wants you to take her out today, but if you haven't got time, I'll tell her," Buffy said, remembering what her sister had said.

"'ve always got time for my bit, tell her 'll be round the wanker's at four," Spike said, "an' then you an' I'll get somethin' to eat tonight. Chat a bit."

"Sounds good," Buffy said.

"Your shakin' in your stylish-yet-affordable boots, Goldilocks. Dunno why, though, 't's hardly 's though we got sweaty," Spike said, shaking his head, more to clear of the image than for expression. Buffy bit her lip at the blush that rose to her cheek far more quickly than usual at his innuendos. And then she thought about what he had just said and was almost lost before she quickly snapped herself back to reality.

"Yeah but…" Buffy sighed, opening her door and looking around for Willow, thankful only to see a note that she was at Oz's and probably would be for the rest of the day. "But it was a good kiss."

"Yeah," Spike agreed, enthusiastically. "An' I dunno… I guess I wouldn' mind tryin' again sometime," he said, drawling it nervously. "But 'f we're gonna have this conversation, we're gonna have 't face 't face. At six, over Chinese."

"Restaurant?"

"'F that's where you want 't eat," Spike agreed. "But 'm not gonna by shy, Goldie. We're friends, an' whatever else happened, we'll always be that so long as 've got a say in the matter. So 'll eat at the restaurant, or I could bring it round yours. T's you as has the blushing bride syndrome."

"You have a reputation for being sensitive," Buffy accused, a light note of teasing in her voice for the first time that morning.

"Uh-huh," Spike said, launching himself off the bed and landing with a thud. "'m gonna go see what Rupes' up to, 'll see you a' six, with Chinese. We can eat at yours or in the public location o' your choosin'. Deal?"

"Deal, six, my place. You aren't a complete and total pig."

"Can I get tha' in writing?" Spike asked, then, not waiting for an answer, "Bye, Goldie." He turned the phone off and turned for the shower.

Buffy, on the other hand stared at hers, if she had read into that conversation what she thought she had- and she credited herself with knowing Spike better than anyone else except Giles- he was _happy_ they'd kissed. Which raised a new questions: was _she_ happy they'd kissed.

She had to sit down when she realized the answer was yes.

Yet it was, she had felt absolute rightness in his arms, like she'd been lost for years and now she was home. Like she'd just been handed everything she'd ever wanted and then something extra just for kicks. And while she wanted nothing more, she just now noticed, than to go back home, she was also scared out of her mind. After all, it wasn't supposed to feel so right with one person… it was supposed to feel…

She didn't know, she just knew that she couldn't feel that wonderful and stay that way.

But she also knew that she couldn't feel it just once.

"Mornin' Da," Spike said, rubbing a towel through his hair with one hand and taking his father's mug of coffee with the other.

"It's great to have you home," Giles said, through gritted teeth as his son collapsed into one of the chairs.

"Innit jus'?" Spike said, grinning.

"Remind me why I had children," Giles said, to no one in particular.

"You wanted a girl, an', t' be fair, you've always liked Lee well enough," Spike said, setting the towel down and taking a sip of the coffee. He promptly spit it back into the cup, "Where's the sugar?"

"You're ridiculous. You are a grown man, either find your own sugar or learn to drink bitter things," Giles said, turning to take the jar of white sugar out and handing it to his son. "And I have never had favourites."

"Mm-hmm," Spike said, noncommittally, pouring sugar into his coffee, "speakin' of, where's the patient?"

"I drove him over to see Jenny earlier this morning. I called her last night to tell her about his outburst and she was interested as to the cause, they've been getting worse, after all."

"I could tell you the cause," Spike muttered, but Giles didn't catch it. "She'll be wantin' to talk to you after?"

"Yes, you're more than welcome to join us," Giles said, "for dinner as well, if you don't mind letting the hotel room go to waste."

"That was a mallet to the head, not a hint. And 'm eatin' with Buffy, she um…"

"I saw, how long has that been going on? And may I be the first to say it took you long enough."

"T's not goin' on. Leastways not yet, an' prob'ly not ever, knowin' my luck," in a drunken fit a year earlier (an _illegal_ drunken fit as Giles liked to point out) Spike had confessed his feelings for Buffy to his father, and well he didn't bring it up often, Giles tried to understand when he did.

"I don't think Buffy's the type of girl to-"

"Kiss 's jus' tha'," Spike said, sighing heavily. "Bu' I said we'd talk abou' it."

"And what is it exactly that you plan on saying?" Giles asked, settling in. Trying, outwardly, to look put-upon, while inwardly jumping up and down for the joy of getting to parent his wayward son once more.

"Dunno, really, depen's on wha' she's sayin', doesn' it?" Spike asked, "I mean, 'f she's sayin' 'let's shag' that's a very different speech than 'f she's sayin' 'you're beneath me', innit?"

"I highly doubt Buffy's going to tell you you're beneath her and the other I don't even want to think of," Giles said. "You're both children, and will remain that way until you're at least seventy, possibly older. And, as I have told you more times than I am physically capable of counting, plans are important little things."

"Operative word: li'l," Spike said.

"Operative word: important," Giles said, "you can't just barge in and plan to go along with whatever she says. For one thing you'll go mad, going along with whatever crazy notions she gets for the rest of your life."

"Are you tellin' me 'm whipped?" Spike said, "this from the man who confessed to having left the house at three in the mornin' to get calamari for his girl?"

"I blame that mostly on you," Giles said, "and if whipped means what I think it does, I am calling you whipped. Thoroughly so, in fact."

"Mum's hormones were no' my fault. Yours 'f anythin'. An' there's an unholy image," Spike screwed his eyes up and shook his head, then sipped his coffee again. Giles eyed the green novelty mug and glumly poured himself another, conscious of his son's smirk. Why he thought the ultimate undermining of authority was taking the authority's caffeine supply, Giles would never know. "An' she migh' yet say both."

"Dear Lord, you are a paranoid little thing, aren't you?"

"'m not little," Spike said, finding nothing better to say, since he knew his father was right.

"Certainly not," Giles said, agreeably. There was nothing he liked more than reducing his brilliant son- not that he'd ever tell him that- to childish banter. "Buffy is a wonderful girl and even if she doesn't feel the same way about you, she'd never tell you that you were beneath her, mostly because you're not. It's that sort of thinking that got you into the mess with Drusilla, anyway."

"Da', when you start datin' a psychiatrist, is this gonna get worse?"

"What's that?"

"Your tendency to overanalyze anythin' I say so I end up with abou' six complexes I haven' got?" Spike said.

"And what psychiatrist?"

"Li'l late on that one. Anyways, t's not like you and Jenny are a secret anymore. Angel was talkin' at me abou' it last night. Does he always feel the need to give out advice on your love life when sedated?"

"Typically."

"That's new."

"There's a lot of things new with Angel," Giles said, tensely. Quite suddenly the pleasant atmosphere was gone, as Spike saw an accusation, and Giles saw an opening to talk to his son.

"Da', you know if you asked, 'd be home in a second. Doesn' matter wha' else's goin' on," Spike said, clearly pained, "an' I know 'm not home 's much 's 'd like t' be but…"

"No, that's not what I was saying at all. I know you try, and I know if it was at all possible you'd be here more. What I meant was that he changes so quickly that-"

"No," Spike said, flatly. "I know wha' you're gonna say, an' the answer is no. What he needs are professionals, not well-intentioned retired librarians." Getting up from the table, he stomped out of the kitchen. "Gimme a call when t's time to go see Jenny. 'll be in my room."

Jenny Calendar, was, as a rule, a very professional woman, but there had always been something different about the Giles family. Maybe it was the fact that she'd met them just before Anne had died, and had been working with them for just over a decade, longer than any of her other patients. Or, it was possible that it was because it was obvious that both William and Rupert genuinely cared about Liam's illness and wanted to take care of him. Or, maybe it was just because Rupert was incredibly sexy- in a fuddy-duddy sort of way.

But, Jenny would never act on her emotions, if not because it was probably unethical to get involved with her most difficult patient's father, but also because she refused to make the first move. And, as William had told he with one of the conspiring winks he had been giving her for years, Rupert was scared of most women.

"Mum," he'd told her, "was one 'f a kind, an' Da's lookin' to find her again. 'F your interested, you've gotta get him t' see you, an' that'll take doin'," then he'd smiled and left. The advice had been totally unasked for and she'd at first been embarrassed that she was that obvious. A week later Buffy Summers had come up to her when she was running Angel to a session and back, and made a quick apology for Spike.

"Spike wants to help," she'd said, with the look of a mother who's three-year-old had just spilled grape juice on a stranger's white blouse, "really. He just doesn't know about privacy," then she'd assumed the look of the scheming girl she really was, "and he also thinks it's embarrassing that his dad can't get a date."

Since then, Jenny had taken to subtly flirting with Rupert Giles, just to see what was happening. Apparently, what was happening was a great deal of flustered glasses-cleaning and an occasional knowing look from her smirking patient.

So, despite her concern for Liam's worsening condition and his father's stubborn refusal to change anything, she had been looking forward to the family session they were having that afternoon, that, of course, had been before she'd gotten in the middle of World War Three.

"Da', we only talked abou' this yesterday, don' tell me your tha' senile jus' yet," Spike was raging, "'f Jenny says t's what he needs, t's what he should get. 'M I right?"

"It was a recommendation, wasn't it, Dr. Calendar?" Giles said her name pointedly, but she wasn't sure whether it was aimed towards her or his son.

"Yes, but I also said that it would be highly unadvisable to keep him in an unsupervised environment, especially with incidents such as last night occurring so much more frequently now. And you've been calling me Jenny for years, Rupert," she said and was immediately treated to a glare from both men and a disinterested look from Liam, who she noticed hadn't yet been asked his opinion. Though, knowing these two as well as she did, she had assumed it would be the last thing they'd think to do. "Also, don't you think someone should ask Angel?"

"Yes," both men said in unison, and spun to look at the brunette who had been lounging on the couch and looking blankly on at the conversation for the past half-hour.

"Well?" Giles said, crisply, his son didn't respond.

"Liam, 't's your chance to talk," Spike said, "a' leas' tell us 'f you don' wanna talk, so I can get back to talkin' some sense to him."

"I want to," Angel said, looking off past all of them."

"Good then, get on with it," Giles said, earning himself a disapproving look from Jenny.

"I've been hurting people."

"Yes," Jenny agreed, encouragingly.

"People I care about. And I'm a burden," Angel said.

"No, never I'd-"

"You're a pain in the arse but-" Spike and Giles burst out at the same time, quietening when Angel focused on them for a moment.

"I know Dad wants to keep me and I don't think he should be alone. But I can't hurt people any more. The guilt's getting to me, and I know, no matter what you say, it's my fault."

"It's not, Angel, and we've talked about this," Jenny said calmly, "but, yes, you have been hurting people. Are you saying that you would like to go somewhere where you could be cared for?"

"If it's what's best for me. For everyone."

"That's good, Angel, I'm pleased that you see that," Jenny then rounded on the two other men, who had been silent for the entire conversation, slightly slack-jawed. "See, that wasn't hard at all, was it? I'll book you some tours of places in the area next week and get in touch. William, it's been nice to see you. Rupert, Angel, we still have an appointment for Wednesday."

"Yes, yes we do," Giles said, taking off his glasses and beginning to clean them before Spike, annoyed, snatched them away.

"An' the meds?"

"I've sent a prescription to the pharmacy in the building, you can pick them up on your way out. Oh, and Rupert, William? Listen to Liam, won't you? It _is_ his life," Jenny smiled at both men, before they turned to go.

"Yeah?"

"Tell Buffy that you won't be embarrassed much longer," then smiling at the puzzled looks on all three faces, she turned to leave the office herself.

"Spike?" Dawn asked, looking at the mint-chocolate chip ice-cream he'd forced her to buy sceptically, while the Englishman gave an identical look at his turtle parfait.

"Mm?"

"Did Riley hit my sister?" Dawn had always loved Spike because he'd treated her like an equal from the start, and anything she wouldn't or couldn't talk to her sister about, she'd taken to him. She had had a crush on him when they were younger, but that was long gone now. When his only response was too nod, she pressed on. "So they broke up, right?"

"Obviously, Bit," the two were sitting on the hood of Spike's car eating ice cream and talking. Spike had picked her up from school half an hour before, and since then the fiery mood he'd been in had dissipated entirely. Spike had always found Dawn adorably innocent and had loved talking to her, even when she was fighting with her sister. And though neither of them would ever suspect it, he had engineered most of their reconciliations by giving advice on both sides. "I wouldn' let her stay with a guy after he did tha'. An' Buffy's a smart li'l thing, she knows better."

"And then she kissed you ?"

"Was there anyone who didn' see tha'?" Spike asked, exasperated.

"Nope," Dawn replied, then she grinned, "I asked her about it."

"Oh?"

"She said you were a way better kisser than Riley."

"Yeah bloody right. Sweetling, you're a worse liar than Harris," Spike paused, "an' a more obvious matchmaker than his bird."

"She's not _his_ bird, Spike. You can't _own_ a person-" Spike grinned, mission achieved. Bit wasn't going to be raising his hopes any more, and he hardly needed half an ear on the lecture, he'd gotten it a thousand times before. He could quite happily go back to figuring out what the fuck he was going to do about her sister.

Buffy couldn't remember every having been nervous about seeing Spike before. And yet… She had been staring into the closet since four-thirty, trying on everything she owned before settled on a black t-shirt over a white skirt that came down below her knees, she wore her hair up, and had done her makeup very carefully, two times. Mostly, she knew in the back of her mind, for something to pass the time. That had been half-an-hour ago, and now Spike was late, as she had known he would be. He and Dawn would get to talking about whatever it was they talked about, and he'd show up, not that apologetic and in a fabulous mood from an afternoon alone with 'the bite-sized one'. She'd never really minded, Dawn had always been shy, and she knew her sister didn't have many close friend her own age and would never talk to her, so Spike was something.

All of this taken into account, she shouldn't have been nervously pacing up and down the length of her room wondering if he'd stood her up. It also did nothing to explain why, when he did show up, she hugged him. Or why, fifteen minutes later, they were still in her room, collapsed across her bed, he was on top of her, one leg cushioned between hers, fingers tangled in her hair. Neither of them had said anything in what felt like hours, occasional gasps, but that was all.

And she'd promised herself she wouldn't do this. Wouldn't fall on him before they knew what they wanted, before they'd talked about it but… _God_, this had to be heaven. It was better than last night, one of his hands was tangled in her hair while the other had found that it fit perfectly on the curve of her hip. One of hers was playing with the soft, unruly curls at the back of his neck while the other rested on his back. His lips were soft, but strong and the kiss wasn't from him or from her, it was shared. She didn't even remember who'd made the first move, though there was a niggling feeling at the back of her mind that it had been her. It didn't matter as long as he was kissing her.

Spike was lost, completely lost in this woman. Something was telling him that he had to pull away, but he was ignoring it, because it was the only sensible thing to do. It had _never_ been like this with anyone else. One kiss from her was a blow job from Dru or everything he'd ever had from any other woman. One whisper of his name as his lips found a spot behind her ear to worship pulled him just that much closer to her.

And it was so chaste, it was just snogging and it wasn't leading anywhere. This was what it was. A kiss, desire, passion something other that he was too superstitious to call love. And there was that voice again, telling him to pull back, wait until he'd gotten all of this sorted out. What 'all of this' was exactly, had escaped him like his name, where he was and everything but the blonde in his arms.

"Love?" He mumbled at her neck, where he'd found himself. It was the first word he'd been able to manage since her lips had met his after he'd come in the door.

"Yeah?" Her voice was dreamy, and throatier than he had ever heard it before.

"What're we doin'?" This was the mad part of his brain speaking, and he knew it was the sane part that held her tight to him when she tried to move away.

"I…I don't know," she admitted, finally. "Trying?" She offered, when he raised his head just enough to look her in the eyes.

"Tryin' what, sweetheart?"

"Something else," she responded, "do you not want too…"

"I want too. Do you?" He asked her, azure eyes looking earnestly up at her.

"Why?"

"Why what, darlin'?" He asked, trying not to let his hurt show in his eyes as he replied, he hid his head in his neck. But he knew that she knew when a hand ran itself through his hair. It was a surprisingly intimate gesture that made his breathe catch in his throat, and made her wonder for the first time since she'd seen him what she was doing.

"Why do you want this? Have you always wanted this?"

"You wan' me t' lie t' you, pet?"

"Never," she replied, the same answer she'd given all the thousands of times he'd asked her the same question, starting with the day of his mother's funeral when she'd asked it he would be alright.

"I want this because t's what I _want_ because t's what 've wanted 's long 's I can remember. I want this because you're my best friend an' the only person I know who can make me want to feed her t' the lions an' hold her 'till the end of the world in the same sentence. I want this because you're beautiful and wise an' because when I need it you have always saved me. I want this because t's what I dream about it every night an' I know I can' have it. I want this for a thousand reasons I can't even begin to fathom. I want this because I know t's wha's righ'. I want this because I want _you_. I want this because you're the most wonderful woman in the world. Bu' most of all, I want this because, 'f I want to be honest with you, 've loved you since Dru," the words came out in a rapid torrent that took them both by surprise, but when he'd started, he hadn't been able to stop. He'd meant it all, discovering most of it for the first time along with her. A beat of silence passed before his brain fully realized what his mouth had just done, "an' I want it 'cause now that 've scared you off, I can' have it."

"Scared me off?" She said, quietly, uncertainly.

"T's prolly not every day that blokes confess their undyin' love after a couple of bloody amazin' kisses," he said, smiling slightly.

"I'm not scared," she said, then paused. "Well, not of that. That was… that was the most beautiful thing I've ever heard."

"What are you scared of then?" His voice was soft and comforting. She knew she should have lied, made a joke out of it, but the truth was the first thing she thought of, and it was what she said.

"Losing you."

"Wha' d' you want me t' say?" Spike asked, honestly not knowing.

"That I won't, but that I don't have to love you the way you love me just yet," she said, softly.

"You will always have me, Buffy," he pulled away from her with considerable willpower so he could look her in the eyes, "even 'f you decided you can' love me or tha' you don' wanna, you will always have me as a friend. 'F you decide that you wan' to try lovin' this poor fool out, then 'm not gonna tell you no an' you'll never be able t' get rid 'f me. Alright?"

"How do you do that?" She asked, quietly.

"What's that?"

"Say what you mean and _mean_ it and make me feel like it's the truth."

"'Cause it is, baby," he replied, then placed a kiss on her forehead, "you never answered my question. Do you want this?"

"Can I not know?"

"Will you ever?"

"Yes."

"I won' wait forever."

"I wouldn't make you."

"Then, yeah, darlin'. Jus' tell me someday, alrigh'?"

"Soon," she said, and it was a promise.

"Tha's all I need to know," he said, then, impulsively, pressed a hard kiss to her lips before pulling her off the bed. "I like you like this, all mussed an' pleased. You're cute."

"Cute?" She asked, wondering for the millionth time how he could switch emotions on the turn of a dime- it had always driven her insane.

"Cute," Spike confirmed, "so, 'f we go out for dinner now, 's it gonna be our firs' date, or 's it jus' gonna be dinner?"

"Who pays if it's our first date?"

"Me."

"If it's dinner?"

"Both of us."

"Then this is most definitely our first date," Buffy said, and smiling, led him out of her room.

Willow had read the note four times before it sunk in.

_-Red_

_Don't worry, Buffy's staying with me tonight. She wants me to tell you that she will, and she'll let you know about the can. No bloody clue what she's going on about, and I expect to know soon. She's going to stay with me until Anya's wedding thing tomorrow. For reasons I'm not thinking about, she says this is a Christmas gift for Oz. I've told her it's very obvious that my Red is still as pure as the snow, please don't ruin my delusions. _

_Love, _

_Spike_

Then, in Buffy's smaller handwriting; _Thank you, tomorrow you'll find out whether or not I can. _

"Oz!" Willow said, excited, "they did it!"

"Who did what?" He said, looking up from the _Cosmopolitan_ he'd picked up when Willow had found the note.

"Spike and Buffy did something. And she's staying with him, but I don't know what they did. Maybe not… or do you think they…" Oz smiled as his girlfriend rambled on.

"Harris?"

"_Don't_ tell me you're cancelling. This is the only way for me to get out of the parade-of-identical-tablecloths that never ends," Xander groaned into the phone.

"'ve got a gorgeous girl in my bed," Spike said, and Xander heard suspiciously familiar giggling in the background, "you can' expect me to give tha' up to play pool with you?"

"I have a gorgeous girl, and, OK, she's more talking about different shades of cream than being in my bed but I was going to give that up to play pool with you."

"You'd give wedding plannin' up for castration, Harris," Spike said, "and 've really got to go. 'll see you in the mornin'."

"Stupid rock star," Xander muttered before slamming the phone down and returning to his bride, who was now debating cream and 'speckled seashell'.

Buffy and Spike had agreed when she'd decided to spend the night that they wouldn't do anything more than kiss just yet. Not, they'd both been all too eager to clarify, that they didn't want too. Just that when they did, it was going to be a big thing for some reason neither of them could quite specify and they both wanted it to be about something that wasn't just lust and new-found _something_. But Buffy had decided when they'd stopped to get her clothes that the fact that they weren't getting wriggly didn't mean it couldn't be romantic. She knew her William and she knew that he would want nothing less than romance, and for reasons she was suddenly beginning to admit, she didn't want to disappoint him.

So, she'd taken one of her favourite CDs when he'd been busy writing the note to Willow, and then put it in while she'd been changing into the flannel pyjamas she'd brought and Spike had been cancelling late-night pool with Xander. And now he'd come into the bedroom to see her, cross-legged on the bed as the first chords came out of the stereo.

_Clock watching and lounge listening_

_Waiting for my colours to shine_

_Swimming pools of broken fools_

_Whose love is deeper whose is true?_

_I will contend my love for you_

_Eventually_

"Hearts and flowers, Princess?" He asked, teasingly.

"I like that one," Buffy replied, "and, yeah. You like?"

"I love, bu' I though' this was supposed to be like every other night we've spent together?"

"With smoochies," she explained cheerfully, "because, you want to know how I feel about you, and the perfect way to figure that out is by lots and lots of kissing."

"So, this is a scientific experiment, then, love?" Spike asked, eyes shining.

"That and you're really hot without a shirt on."

_Serenade my love_

_Is all I can do_

_And I know, yes, I know it's wrong to be so_

_Vigilant and so far gone_

_It goes on and on and on_

Spike grinned as he sat on the bed beside her and pulled her into his lap, this was, most definitely heaven. Had it only been last night that he'd been dancing with her and cursing himself for the stupidity of falling in love with a woman he couldn't have? How quickly things changed.

_Talking to myself_

_I won't be like the rest_

_No one sees what lives inside me_

_I can't even taste it myself_

_Eventually_

Buffy knew that there was no question what her answer would be the next morning going on kissing alone. And she'd decided that was when she'd tell him. It wasn't that she wanted tease him, it was just that this had all happened in twenty-four too-short hours and she wanted to be sure she knew her own heart before she told him. If she was doing this, she was doing it right.

It had only been a day since she was with Riley, though it seemed like a lifetime, and she wanted to do it right this time.

_Serenade my love_

_Is all I can do_

_And I know, yes, I know it's wrong to be so_

_Vigilant and so far gone_

_It goes on and on and on_

_My love is as fierce as the seas_

_That swells and swallows the space between_

_Him_

_And me_

_Eventually_

_Serenade my love_

_Is all I can do_

_And I know, yes, I know it's wrong to be so_

_Vigilant and so far gone_

_It goes on and on and on_

_We started out kissing, and it was the first time I'd done that in a long while. Have you ever really thought about a kiss? It shouldn't mean anything to us, it doesn't **do** anything all that special, when you think about it. _

_And, please don't give me any of that crap about simulation sex. That just isn't true. _

_Or that it's different with someone you love, because it is. But then, everything is. Going to the grocery store is about a zillion times more interesting when you're with someone you love. _

_So, for tonight's homework, kiddies, think about kissing. _


End file.
